Topic
Board and investor power balance, proxy voting, and oversight mechanisms.
Supermicro hired ex-Western Digital CFO Mark Long as finance chief, nearly two years after promising to replace David Weigand. He inherits a co-founder's indictment in an alleged $2.5 billion chip-smuggling case and a grand jury subpoena on internal controls.
Reality
NYU law professors Marcel Kahan and Edward Rock say Delaware's traditional Corporation Law Council process broke down in 2024 and 2025. Their paper counts two sets of significant new rules adopted by legislation within two years; incorporators now weigh legislative politics too.
Reality
Glass Lewis proposes to replace its single benchmark voting policy with four perspectives from the 2028 US proxy season, Pay Governance reports. One pay program could draw different Say on Pay recommendations, so boards will need to tailor engagement to key shareholders.
Reality
Freshfields partner Ethan Klingsberg says AI agents pose a different challenge than LLMs to the line between board reliance and delegation. His test asks for a supporting record and directors informed enough to rely on it, but the text available ends before it says how that applies to agents.
Reality
FW Cook identified six companies whose 2026 proxy statements disclose moves to longer-horizon RSUs for executives. ISS's November 2025 policy change gave compensation committees more room to weight equity toward time-based awards.
Reality
Sanderson Design Group director Patrick Lewis has warned its 14% shareholder, LBV, of possible defamation action over criticism of executive pay. LBV is seeking the chairwoman's removal on 29 October and has taken the exchange to shareholders.
Reality
Comments on the SEC's proposal to rescind Rule 14a-8 in its entirety are due November 20, 2026. Two shareholder advocates argue that companies tempted to welcome repeal would be giving up the rule's written grounds for excluding proposals.
Reality
Sullivan & Cromwell reports that governance proposals were the majority of Rule 14a-8 submissions in H1 2026 for the first time since 2012. The SEC's plan to eliminate the rule leaves the right to file for the core 2027 proxy season intact, the firm says.
Reality
Women's share of C-suite and board roles has stalled at about 30%, with board representation down for the first time in more than a decade, Fortune reported. Women-led Fortune 500 companies rose to 56 (11.2%), a count we think trails the promotions behind it.
Reality
AICPA and NC State found 69% of 331 executives say risk complexity rose significantly in five years, but only 11% see risk management as an advantage. Just 29% have a formal risk appetite for strategic planning.
Reality
In 2026 proxy filings, the median CEO was paid $17.5 million in the S&P 500 and $7.1 million in the Russell 3000, up 6% and 7% on a year earlier. Equity carries most of the growth since 2021. The report puts investor scrutiny on exceptional awards, above-target payouts and executive security.
Reality
LBV Asset Management, which holds 12% of Sanderson Design Group, is pushing to remove chair Dame Dianne Thompson before an emergency meeting on 29 October. The board is fighting the motions, and the vote will show whether holders put half-year results ahead of complaints about pay and spending.
Reality
Activists aimed a record 82% of their 179 campaigns this year at five sectors, led by industrials and technology, according to Barclays. Fewer funds are running those campaigns, so boards in industrials and technology face a smaller and slightly busier pool of challengers.
Reality
LBV Asset Management, which owns about 14% of Sanderson Design Group, is pushing to remove Dame Dianne Thompson as chair and director, City AM reported. The fund says a long turnaround needs a chair with years left in the role, whatever her record.
Reality
Tim Cook says he handed Apple's CEO job to John Ternus days before the iPhone Duo unveiling so Ternus would have 'wind at his back.' By Cook's own account the phone is still a few weeks from buyers, so Ternus gets the launch attention now and will answer for the results later.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishersReality
Automattic put Matt Mullenweg on paid leave on Wednesday and made its CFO interim CEO. Two days later Mullenweg told staff on Slack that the board is back in agreement, and no board member has confirmed it.
Reality
Silicon Valley 150 companies averaged 89.2% say-on-pay support in 2026 against 88.1% at the S&P 100, a Fenwick & West survey found. The Valley also had more failed pay votes and weaker director floors, so its boards have a wider range of outcomes to plan against for 2027.
Reality
Venture investors held over 5% of the median US venture-backed company for three to four years after listing, a study of 844 IPOs from 2002 to 2020 finds. Their boards run on control shared between funds, founders and outsiders well past the lock-up.
Reality
South Korea's Supreme Court ruled that gathering proxies for one meeting does not make shareholders joint holders under the 5% disclosure rule. A group owning under 5% can collect revocable proxies and vote them without filing a stake report.
Reality
Bob Chapek, fired as Disney CEO after less than three years, says he would turn the job down if offered again. He blames a board that brought back Bob Iger, who now sits on it while Josh D'Amaro runs the company.
Reality
Product · September 25, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers
Leadership · September 22, 2026 · One report1 publisher
Leadership · September 19, 2026 · One report1 publisher
Leadership · September 19, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers
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Build · September 16, 2026 · One report1 publisher
Leadership · September 15, 2026 · One report1 publisher
Leadership · September 10, 2026 · One report1 publisher
Leadership · September 8, 2026 · One report1 publisher
Invest · September 2, 2026 · Confirmed11 publishers