Joele Frank and Anne Chapman: Strategic Communications, Activism, and Governance

(0:00) Intro to this episode(1:34) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.(2:21) Start of interview(3:19) Joele Frank's origin story(5:02) Anne Chapman's origin story(8:41) The history and focus of the firm Joelle Frank (now has ~250 people, with offices in NYC and SF).(12:46) Shareholder activism in today's market(15:52) The Exxon Mobil activism case [see E28 with Aiesha Mastagni from CalSTRS, starting at 23:27](18:17) Say-on-Pay and Executive Compensation Dynamics "compensation is a real emotional topic"(21:27) On mega grants.(23:17) The evolution of M&A in shareholder activism(25:44) Geopolitical Tensions in the Boardroom. Examples: US Steel (Golden share by US), MP Materials (10% equity stake).(28:38) Evolution of ESG/DEI, including boardroom diversity.(33:00) AI, PBCs, and Governance Challenges. Is it a bubble? Concern about ethical AI.(38:35) Case Study: Norfolk's Proxy Fight. Digital component to increase retail component of the vote.(44:14) How activists are proposing more qualified directors to boards (focus on individual directors post universal proxy rules).(48:50) The Changing Landscape of Board Composition(49:55) The Importance of Board Evaluations(51:45) On the "stay private or go public" debateJoele Frank is the founder and Managing Partner of Joele Frank. Anne Chapman is a Managing Director at Joele Frank. You can follow Evan on social media at:X: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License