Board Diversity: What Are You Waiting For?
by Patricia Lenkov, Founder and Principal at Agility Executive Search The burden of proof has been met. Diverse boards make better decisions that lead to improved company performance. Yet despite the research and validation and the increasing prodding by institutional...More News from the 2017 Meeting Front: The Best & Worst
BofA’S DONATIONS TO SPECIAL OLYMPICS PRODUCED BIG NEW-VOTER TURNOUT: In our last issue we singled out Bank of America’s proxy package for special mention as “required viewing.” With most of the ‘big season’ now behind us, it remains the best and most effective set of...The Hottest Proxy Issues in 2018
Q&A with Bruce H. Goldfard, President & CEO of Okapi Partners
Unclaimed Property: One of the Hottest Issues for Issuers of Securities in 2018
An Interview with John Buonomo, Senior Vice President, Issuer Services at AST
Hot Issues for 2018 Proxy Season Preparation
Ron Schneider, Director of Corporate Governance Services, Donnelley Financial Solutions
Ways to “Optimize” Your Retail Shareholder Base
Margaret (Peggy) Foran, Chief Governance Officer, Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary of Prudential Financial, Inc.
Striving To Deliver Greater Convenience and Control
An Interview with John Dunn, Vice President, U.S. Corporate Issuer Sales at Broadridge.
A Pre-Proxy Season Q&A With Broadridge
With annual meetings being top of mind for many companies at this time of the year, the Optimizer sat down with John Dunn, Vice President, US Corporate Issuer Sales at Broadridge to get his perspective and learn what is new at the company.
OUR TOP TIPS ON CHOOSING A PROXY SOLICITOR
It’s been a long time since we last shared our top tips on choosing a proxy solicitation/proxy advisory firm…And wow…the industry has changed a lot since then…not least in terms of the specific “talent” that each firm has on board, as noted above…which, please note well, is the number-one thing that proxy firms have to offer.
Executive Compensation Going Forward
By Jeremy L. Goldstein, Jeremy L. Goldstein & Associates, LLC
The Board-Centric Annual Meeting
Rasing The Bar For Board Communication
More “Hot Issues for Your Annual Meeting”
There is still time to bone up – and maybe right now is the very best time to do so – to be sure you are up to snuff on what really IS hot on the shareholder meeting scene…
Some Early Returns from The Shareholder Meeting Scene: What’s Hot – And What’s Not
What’s the hottest thing for corporate citizens to be worried about as we head into the big spring meeting season?
Virtual Meetings Gain Traction
This year, through June, Broadridge has enabled 140 Virtual Shareholder Meetings – almost all of them “virtual-only” – with no in-person attendees
What To Do If The Power Goes Off At Your Shareholder Meeting… While The Fire Alarms Shriek Alarmingly
How’s this for a shareholder meeting horror-story to take to heart?
The Weirdest Events To Cross Our Desk During The Spring Meeting Season
Despite the relatively quiet season on the whole, we, and our Team of 50 Independent Inspectors of Election, experienced more weird and wacky events than ever before – and more events where corporate managers, and in many cases their outside counsel too, seemed way behind the curve.
A Quick Overview Of The Big Spring Meeting Season…Plus Our Bets On Next Year’s Hottest Meeting Issues
The big spring meeting season was surprisingly uneventful on the whole – with lots of proxy-access proposals passing – or being adopted voluntarily – and with most says-on-pay sailing by with 90%+ margins…much as we’d predicted.
Now’s the Time to Start on Your Annual Meeting Briefing Book, as Ethics and Compliance Issues Jump to the Top of Activist and Issuer Agendas
Back when the Volkswagen scandals first began to break – which seems like ages ago now – we warned readers that ethics and compliance issues were certain to move to the top-of-mind where shareholders of every stripe are concerned.
Re-Tooling your IR and Governance Tool-Kits
How we communicate with each other, investors, and consumers is rapidly changing
Our Newly Revised Primer on Tabulation and Reporting Shareholder Meeting Votes
We last issued our primer on tabulating and reporting on shareholder meeting votes in 2009 – and, since then, there have been so many changes in the landscape, we realized that an updated version was due…right about now…so here it is:
Transfer Agents & Issuers: Are You Prepared For The Future?
The 2015 Industry Index Helps Us Get To Safe Shores
TWO PROPOSED STEPS TOWARD A BETTER RESOLUTION OF THE “STRANDED DRP PROBLEM”
The first, and perhaps the most urgently needed step, we say, is for issuers to review the Terms and Conditions governing their own plan, and revise them so that any time the Plan balance is less than one full share, the Plan Agent will, henceforth, liquidate the fractional share, send a check, and close the account.
“STRANDED DRPS” ARE COSTING ISSUERS BIG BUCKS – LITERALLY “FOR NOTHING”
As we’ve noted in previous issues, your editors, and many of our savvier and busier friends, have been trying to clean up most of our smallish DRP and DSPP accounts. Why? Because of all the paperwork they generate – but also to be able to consolidate all our investments in a single place.
Another Look at Transfer Agent Market Share; The Real Decider, We Say, of Transfer Agent Success… and Survival
Recently, a reader sent us a link to a web-posting from a firm called Auto Analytics, which has been tracking Transfer Agent market share since 2012, based on the number of companies that are active SEC registrants. This way of measuring market share produces very...Podcast Alert: Annual Meeting Season 2026 — Expert Advice from Carl & Peder Hagberg
Carl and Peder Hagberg of The Shareholder Service OPTIMIZER join Meredith Ervine from TheCorporateCounsel.net to discuss proxy season risks, virtual meetings, and shareholder engagement for 2026.
Listen to hear their insights on this year’s annual meeting season.