Harvard Convenes the Roundtable on Shareholder Engagement

The Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and the Harvard Law School Program on Institutional Investors convened the Harvard Roundtable on Shareholder Engagement last Wednesday, June 17. The event brought together for a roundtable discussion 81 prominent experts with a wide range of perspectives on the subject, including senior officers from institutional investors (both mutual funds and public pension funds) with aggregate assets under management exceeding $16 trillion, senior officers from companies with aggregate market capitalization exceeding $1.4 trillion, and representatives from many leading activist hedge funds, investment banks and corporate law firms. Participants in the event, and the topics of discussion, are set out below.

The Roundtable sessions focused on shareholder engagement with issuers. The Roundtable began with a general discussion of current debates on shareholder activism. The participants discussed a variety of topics, including the debate on whether activism is beneficial for the long-term and the debate on buybacks and distributions to shareholders. The Roundtable then moved to a discussion of engagements with respect to activist interventions, including engagement between issuers and investors (both activists and non-activist), and among investors. The Roundtable, which was co-organized by Lucian Bebchuk, Stephen Davis, and Scott Hirst, was sponsored by a number of co-sponsors (listed here), the supporting organizations of the Program on Corporate Governance (listed on the Program site here), and the institutional members of the Harvard Institutional Investor Forum (listed here).

The participants in the Roundtable on Shareholder Engagement included:

Maryellen Andersen, Corporate Governance Officer, Vice President, Institutional Investor and Corporate Relations, Broadridge

William D. Anderson, Jr., Managing Director, Global Head of Activism & Raid Defense, Goldman, Sachs & Co.

James Andrus, Portfolio Manager, Global Governance, California Public Employees’ Retirement System

Jeffrey Barbieri, Corporate Governance/ESG, Assistant Vice President, Wellington Management Company

Douglas Barnard, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary, CF Industries

Scott Bauguess, Deputy Chief Economist, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; Deputy Director, Division of Economic and Risk Analysis

Lucian Bebchuk, Friedman Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance, Harvard Law School

Amy Bilbija, Managing Director, Evercore Partners

Karla Bos, Director, Investment Proxy Research, Fidelity Management & Research Co.

Gloria Bowden, Associate General Counsel and Secretary, The Coca-Cola Company

John Butler, Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Anne Chapman, Vice President, Investment Operations and Senior Manager, Capital Group

Warren Chen, Managing Director, Glass, Lewis & Co.

Eileen Cohen, Managing Director, J.P. Morgan Asset Management

Thomas A. Cole, Partner and former Chair of the Executive Committee, Sidley Austin LLP

Joan Conley, Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary, Nasdaq

Arthur Crozier, Chairman, Innisfree M&A

Scott Davis, Partner, Mayer Brown

Stephen Davis, Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Programs on Corporate Governance and Institutional Investors, Harvard Law School

Deborah L. DeHaas, Vice Chairman, Chief Inclusion Officer and National Managing Partner for the Center for Corporate Governance, Deloitte LLP

Lawrence E. Dennedy, President, MacKenzie Partners, Inc.

Geoffrey Edwards, Senior Associate General Counsel, Corporate Governance and Assistant Secretary, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Steven Epstein, Partner & Co-Head of M&A, Fried Frank

Gregg Feinstein, Managing Director and Head of M&A, Houlihan Lokey

Allen Ferrell, Harvey Greenfield Professor of Securities Law, Harvard Law School

Matthew Filosa, Vice President, Corporate Governance & Proxy Voting, MFS Investment Management

Virginia Fogg, General Counsel, Norfolk Southern

Peggy Foran, Chief Governance Officer, VP and Corporate Secretary, Prudential Financial

Jesse Fried, Dane Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Todd Gershkowitz, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Total Rewards and HR Shared Services, State Street Corporation

Bruce Goldfarb, President and Chief Executive Officer, Okapi Partners

Sarah Goller, Senior Manager, Vanguard Group

Tony Gomes, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Citrix Systems

Gavin Grant, Head of Active Ownership, Norges Bank Investment Management

Richard Grossman, Partner, Skadden

Matt Gruber, Associate Dean and Chief Financial Officer, Harvard Law School

Larry Hamdan, Head of M&A – Americas, Barclays

Nancy Hamilton, Deputy General Counsel, Corporate Governance and Mergers & Acquisitions, Monsanto Company

Todd G. Hartman, Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, Best Buy Co., Inc.

Paul Hilal, Partner, Pershing Square Capital Management

Scott Hirst, Associate Director, Program on Institutional Investors, Harvard Law School

Bess Joffe, Managing Director, Head of Corporate Governance, TIAA-CREF

Robert Katz, Partner, Shearman & Sterling

Jeffrey R. Katz, Partner, Ropes & Gray

Roy J. Katzovicz, Chairman, Saddle Point Group, LLC

Maryanne Lavan, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Lockheed Martin

Gwen Le Berre, Director – Proxy & Governance, Charles Schwab Investment Management

Stephanie Leaist, Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Investing, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

Kai Haakon E. Liekefett, Partner, Vinson & Elkins

Paula Loop, Leader, Center for Board Governance and the Investor Resource Institute, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Jay W. Lorsch, Louis E. Kirstein Professor of Human Relations, Harvard Business School

David Maltz, Vice President, Legal, Duke Energy Corporation

Chadwick Mills, Partner, Cooley

Manish K. Mital, General Counsel and Managing Principal, Halcyon Asset Management

Thomas Moore, Vice President, Corporate Secretary and Chief Governance Officer, Ameriprise Financial

Daniel Oh, Vice President, Corporate Governance and Responsible Investment, BlackRock

Benet J. O’Reilly, Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Matthew Orsagh, Director of Capital Markets Policy, CFA Institute

Donald F. Parsons, Vice Chancellor, Delaware Court of Chancery

Sean Quinn, Executive Director, ISS

Kashif Rashid, Deputy General Counsel, Commercial & SEC, St. Jude Medical

Suzanne Rolon, Director – Corporate Governance, Pfizer

Jeffrey J. Rosen, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton

David Rosewater, Managing Director, Activism Defense Group, Morgan Stanley

Jim Rossman, Head of Corporate Preparedness, Lazard

Paul Schneider, Head of Corporate Governance, Public Equities, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan

Brian Schorr, Partner and Chief Legal Officer, Trian Fund Management

Carol Schwartz, Secretary and Corporate Governance Officer, American Express

John Seethoff, Vice President, Deputy General Counsel – Corporate, Microsoft

Anne Sheehan, Director of Corporate Governance, California State Teachers’ Retirement System

Matt Sherman, President and Partner, Joele Frank

Wendy Skjerven, Corporate Secretary, Travelers

Gregory W. Smith, Executive Director, Colorado PERA

Darla Stuckey, President & CEO, Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals

Daniel Summerfield, Co-Head of Responsible Investment, Universities Superannuation Scheme

Sunil Suri, Portfolio Manager, Dimensional Fund Advisors

Qin Tuminelli, Vice President, Credit Suisse

Marc Weingarten, Partner, Schulte Roth & Zabel

Joseph White, Managing Director, Head of Institutional Strategic Equity Sales, Société Générale

Daniel Wolf, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis

Steve Wolosky, Partner, Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP

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