Christopher Cooper-Hohn, The Children’s Investment Fund
Christopher Cooper-Hohn is credited with founding The Children’s Investment Fund, one of the United Kingdom’s largest charities. Cooper-Hohn is also managing partner and portfolio manager of a London-based investment fund that received Eurohedge’s overall European Hedge Fund of the Year Award in 2004 and 2005.
Roger W. Ferguson Jr. and Hye-Won Choi, TIAA-CREF
With managed assets of almost $370 billion and 3.6-million active and retired employees in participation, the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) is one of the world’s largest retirement funds. A Fortune 100 financial firm, TIAA-CREF is a force to be reckoned with in the financial community and a significant market mover. Company President and CEO Roger W. Ferguson Jr. has enjoyed a career in a number of roles within the financial and regulatory world, including as vice chairman of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve. Head of corporate governance Hye-Won Choi works to oversee TIAA-CREF’s high standards of corporate governance and accountability; she has worked within the institutional investor for 15 years.
Richard Ferlauto, AFSCME
A go-to source, Richard Ferlauto, director of corporate governance and pension investment at the 1.5-million member American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), is responsible for representing employee interests in public retirement and benefit systems. Ferlauto is vocal about the need for transparency in the boardroom and is a leading proponent of increasing shareholder access to proxies. His efforts have helped highlight broker voting practices, preventing uninstructed votes from being cast by broker-dealers.
Anne Sheehan, California State Teachers’ Retirement System
Bridging the gap between shareholders and boards, Anne Sheehan serves as director of corporate governance at California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS). Sheehan focuses primarily on carbon emission reporting by portfolio companies and increasing diversity in the boardroom. She helps guide the day-to-day activities of the group, which is responsible for the oversight of an activist investment management portfolio of $3 billion and execution of nearly 8,000 proxy votes annually.
Damon Silvers, AFL-CIO and Ed Durkin, UBC
Two of the country’s top investment legal counselors to union-held pension funds, Damon Silvers of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Ed Durkin of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBC) are tireless laborers for two of the nation’s largest worker bodies. Associate General Counsel Silvers wields great influence as a representative for the AFL-CIO, taking aim at various issues related to sound governance and shareholder rights. He also serves as a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Standing Advisory Group. UBC Corporate Affairs Department Director Ed Durkin fulfills a similar role within the carpenter’s union, recently waging a “say-on-pay” campaign against large-cap companies.Ralph Whitworth and David Batchelder, Relational Investors
Pension fund group Relational Investors works to identify and nurture underperforming companies to the benefit of their investors, having in the past brought changes to Home Depot, Sprint, and other big-name companies. The firm’s founders, Ralph Whitworth and David Batchelder, have led the fund through 13 years of consistent profitability, including a cumulative outperforming of the S&P 500 Total Return Index during this span. Whitworth, a veteran of public company boards, formerly served as the chairman for Apria Healthcare and Waste Management. Batchelder has had a similarly prolific career as a director, having served on nine boards including Home Depot. (For an interview with Whitworth, see page 18.)
Ann Yerger and Amy Borrus, CII
Ann Yerger, executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, an association of more than 130 public, labor, and corporate benefit plans and other institutional investors with assets exceeding $3 trillion, has played an integral role promoting shareholder rights. Applauding the SEC’s efforts to promote proxy access to shareholders, Yerger believes that additional proxy access allows “shareholders…to be more thoughtful about whom they nominate to serve as directors.” Her colleague, deputy director and former BusinessWeek writer Amy Borrus, believes that boards should open the lines of communication to help shareholders “draw the link between performance and pay and address it head on.”
Steve Forbes, Forbes
As the framework for American capitalism wobbled, the editor-in- chief of that lovably reliable list-making Capitalist Tool took center stage, authoring a cogent prescription for what ailed us and, in Oprah-like fashion, putting his own image on the Nov. 22, 2008 cover story, “How Capitalism Will Save Us.” In it, Steve Forbes argues for lower taxes, regulation that is prudent, not punitive, and a Federal Reserve that is committed to maintaining the dollar as good as gold. In addition to writing cover stories, Forbes is omnipresent in the privately held magazine and online fortress he both inherited and helped shape since being named president and CEO of Forbes, Inc., in 1990. His political interests are more than just that: In 1996 and 2000, Forbes sought the Republican nomination for the presidency and served as an economic advisor to presidential contender John McCain. Free people. Free markets. That’s the Forbes mantra, as well as the shortest route to the top of his most cherished list.
The Media
CNBC: The Business Chanel
As a co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box, Becky Quick addresses breaking financial news before most people have hit “snooze” a second time. Prior to assuming her current position, Quick was a Wall Street beat writer for CNBC. Having honed her skills covering the retail and e-commerce beat at The Wall Street Journal. Warren Buffett tapped her to be one of his questioners at Berkshire Hathaway’s most recent annual meeting. Quick’s former Squawk Box co-anchor, Maria Bartiromo anchors CNBC’s Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo and is host and managing editor of Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo, which was recently deemed the most watched financial news program in America. Other noted CNBC anchors include Charlie Gasparino, whose newest book, The Sellout will implicate the guilty parties involved in last year’s economic crisis; and Jim Cramer, formerly a hedge fund owner/manager, and, prior to that, a Harvard lawyer turned Goldman Sachs trader, who enthusiastically ends each day with his CNBC hit show Mad Money. Larry Kudlow rounds out the network’s heavy hitters with Kudlow & Company.
Carol Loomis, Fortune
Fortune Senior Editor at Large Carol J. Loomis is a true veteran in the world of business journalism. A Fortune staff member for the past 52 years, Loomis has written profiles of all the major business leaders including Sandy Weill, Robert Rubin, and Warren Buffett. She has received every award in the business for her writing and involvement in business journalism, including the Women’s Economic Round Table award, of which she was the first recipient. Other Fortune contributors to corporate governance: Editorial Director Geoff Colvin, whose newest book, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, was published in October; and William D. Cohan, contributing editor, who is most recently noted for his opinions regarding the 2008 economic crisis. His book, House of Cards, describes in riveting, horrifying detail the last days of Bear Stearns & Co.
Joann Lublin, The Wall Street Journal
Since 1991, The Wall Street Journal Management News Editor Joann Lublin and Deputy Managing Editor Alan Murray have been at the forefront of corporate governance news coverage. Lublin’s areas of expertise include key issues such as executive compensation, recruiting, and succession. Lublin frequently speaks at and participates in conferences on corporate governance, especially those dealing with executive compensation. She shared the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and in 2007 was a finalist for a Loeb Award, the highest honor in business journalism. Murray regularly contributes to CNBC, and authored Revolt in the Boardroom: The New Rules of Power in Corporate America in 2007, the third of his best-selling books. Prior to assuming his current position, Murray wrote the Journal’s weekly “Business” column.
Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times
The New York Times “Dealbook” Editor, Andrew Ross Sorkin seems to have the formula for breaking business news down to a science. Sorkin’s track record for such stories includes acquisitions (Chase of J.P. Morgan, Hewlett-Packard of Compaq, and Jonson & Johnson of Guiadant), as well as sales and mergers (IBM’s sale to Lenovo and Symantec’s $13-billion software sale with Veritas). Most recently, Warren Buffett tapped Sorkin to help moderate the 2009 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder’s meeting. He frequently appears on television and radio programs such as NBC’s Today Show, PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and ABC’s Good Morning America, among others. His forthcoming book, Too Big to Fail, will undoubtedly illuminate more of the inside story of what was happening on Wall Street last fall. Other New York Times notables: Assistant Business and Financial Editor Gretchen Morgenson, who has received a Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting and was named “The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation,” by The Nation; Chief Financial Columnist Floyd Norris; and economist, columnist, and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.
Very interesting and very valuable for my MBA level courses on corporate governance at Lubin School of Business, Pace University. We began offering the first MBA level course on COMPARATIVE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE, nearly four years ago. We now have added a second and third governance related courses and have under consideration both a double major for Accounting and Finance majors and a governance MBA. Your publications are very insightful and offer students a “real world” experience with governance and the important role of Directors.
Some years ago I created, edited and published the first texts available in English on all aspects of governance, company law and related industrial relations/labour relations (stakeholder laws)for the 12 major countries of Western Europe.
Professor John Alan James, Lubin School of Business, Pace University
Good job on a tough assignment. Of course no two people will ever agree on everyone who should or shouldn’t be on the list but the one person who immediately comes to my mind, and the minds of many in any discussion of corporate governance, is Robert A. J. Monks.
Bob was instrumental in creating a fiduciary duty for pension a mutual funds to vote in corporate elections. He found Institutional Shareholder Services (now part of the Risk Metrics Group), which many believe has almost monopoly power in advising institutional investors how to vote. He and Nell Minow (who you did include) then set up the LENS Fund, which paved the way for Relational Investors, GO and others on your list. Along with Nell, he then set up The Corporate Library, which you also include. You include several academics, all worthy, but it was Bob and Nell’s book, Corporate Governance, along with another earlier book by R.I. (Bob) Tricker, that virtually created the academic discipline.
I can’t understand how you missed this giant of the field… or maybe he’s on your list and I missed it?
We appreciate Jim McRitchie’s comment on Robert A.G Monks, and his achievements in the context of US corporate governance. In fact, Bob Monks was recognized by Directorship in our 2008 Corporate Governance Hall of Fame, and deservedly so (along with Bill Donaldson, Mike Oxley, Paul Sarbanes, and Ira Millstein). In addition to Bob’s many accomplishments, he also happens to be a first rate fellow and a delightful individual whom we admire and enjoy immensely.
– The Editors of Directorship