June 12 , 2007
Yale School of Management’s Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance Marks First Anniversary; Announces New Events, Research, Board Members
New Haven, Conn., June 12, 2007 — The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management today marks the one-year anniversary of its launch. As it embarks on its second year of promoting good governance, the Center is pleased to announce its upcoming schedule of events, research agenda, and new members of its staff and advisory board.
The Millstein Center, which is named in honor of Ira M. Millstein, a principal architect of modern international corporate governance, was established with the mission to serve as a leading global resource for testing, challenging, and advancing the premise that corporations should and can serve society. It pursues this mission through a unique interdisciplinary approach, convening the top academics from fields such as economics, law, and politics, experienced practitioners, and leaders in business, investment, and public policy.
“We have fulfilled our vision to create a center that breaks down the traditional boundaries of corporate governance to address the most important issues in a practical and effective way,” said Ira Millstein, senior associate dean for corporate governance at Yale SOM. “The collaborations with our partners have yielded new insight into the issues that are being discussed in boardrooms and news headlines such as investor activism and executive compensation policy. In the coming year, we look forward to furthering the Center’s mission through an even more ambitious research agenda.”
The Millstein Center has expanded its staff with the appointment of Stephen Davis, president of Davis Global Advisors, co-author of The New Capitalists (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), and editor of Global Proxy Watch, as fellow.
“The practitioner’s perspective that Stephen Davis brings has been a great value to the Center. Looking forward, Stephen’s many years of experience in corporate governance will help the Center build greater capacity,” said Jonathan Koppell, director of the Millstein Center.
In addition, three new members have been appointed to the Millstein Center advisory board: John Hill, chairman of Putnam Funds; Denise Nappier, Connecticut State Treasurer; and Joe Dear, executive director of the Washington State Investment Board.
“We are very pleased to add the depth of experience of John Hill, Denise Nappier, and Joe Dear to our advisory board. Their backgrounds add further dimension to an already robust board of significant people with very strong commitments to supporting and promoting corporate governance,” said George Vojta, chairman of the Millstein Center advisory board.
Through its partnerships with academic institutions, corporations, and corporate governance bodies, the Millstein Center convenes conferences, roundtables, and workshops around the world. Events scheduled to take place through fall 2007 will span from New Haven to Istanbul and explore topics such as shareholder rights and corporate governance in emerging markets.
The second annual Yale Governance Forum will be held June 18-19, 2007 in New Haven. The forum will focus on shareholder rights and shareholder voting through sessions that will assess the proper balance between regulation and shareholder activism, evaluate whether shareholder participation affects executive compensation, and judge how institutions charged with casting shareholder votes undertake this responsibility.
At this event, the Center is expected to release a draft of its first policy briefing “Does ‘Say on Pay’ Work: Lessons on Making CEO Compensation Accountable” authored by Stephen Davis, as well as the first report, written with Standard & Poor’s, of its Roundtable Series “Rating Corporate Governance and Performance.”
Long-term Value Investors, a roundtable on investment in mid-size public companies, is expected to take place in the late summer 2007 in New York City. The roundtable will address the role of private pools of capitals such as hedge funds and private equity, which focus on long-term growth. It will better define the different actors and how they operate, and allow participants to exchange ideas on how they can be more effective, including improving the governance and performance of their portfolio companies.
Shareholders and Corporate Governance, a joint conference with Oxford University’s Säid School of Business, will take place October 19-20, 2007 at Oxford. The conference will examine how differing law and regulation in the U.S. and Britain affect the incentives and abilities of institutional investors to engage in active corporate governance, and whether those differences affect corporate performance.
The Shifting Capital Market and Corporate Governance is a study with the OECD that investigates the changing nature of ownership of corporations worldwide. The project will include high-level roundtables with segments of the capital market; the first roundtable will be held in Paris in fall 2007.
The International Conference on Corporate Governance in Emerging Markets, a joint effort among the Millstein Center, the Global Corporate Governance Forum, the Asian Institute of Corporate Governance, the European Corporate Governance Institute, the International Corporate Governance Network, and the Corporate Governance Forum of Turkey, will take place in Istanbul, Turkey November 16-17, 2007 and will bring together researchers investigating how corporate governance affects emerging markets’ firms’ performance and economic development.
The Millstein Center also sponsors and commissions empirical research by scholars at Yale and other institutions. Recently funded projects include a study by Martijn Cremers on block-holders and the power structure in the ownership of various firms, as well as a project by Timothy Guinnane examining corporate forms and corporate governance in the U.S., UK, France, and Germany. Current projects include, in partnership with the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), a study that examines how boards make a difference in corporate governance. Also with the NACD, Yale SOM Professor Rick Antle, under the auspices of the Center, is developing its new, more rigorous director education curriculum. Another study, in conjunction with Accenture and MIT, will explore the role ‘director dashboards’ or governance technologies play in the strategic and operational performance of boards.
For more information about The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, please visit: http://millstein.som.yale.edu or contact Center executive director, Milica Boskovic at +1.203.432.8070. In addition to current information about its programs and research, the Center’s website now features an array of corporate governance resources including a calendar of corporate governance events around the world, a discussion board on corporate governance issues, a directory of global corporate governance contacts, and a searchable database of corporate governance speeches by Ira Millstein.