The Chancellors: Past and Present

The Chancellors: Past and Present

Past Events

Date-Time: Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 9:30 AM to 10:45 AM

Location: Clayton Hall, University of Delaware

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the Weinberg Center will be hosting “The Chancellors: Past and Present,” which will feature the following current and former Chancellors from the Delaware Court of Chancery, as the Weinberg Center’s 2022 John L Weinberg Distinguished Speaker:

  • The Honorable Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, Chancellor, Delaware Court of Chancery
  • The Honorable Andre G. Bouchard, former Chancellor, Delaware Court of Chancery; Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
  • The Honorable William B. Chandler, III, former Chancellor, Delaware Court of Chancery; Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati;
  • The Honorable Leo E. Strine, Jr., former Chancellor, Delaware Court of Chancery; former Chief Justice, Delaware Supreme Court; and Of Counsel, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
  • Gregory P. Williams, Director, Richards, Layton & Finger, Moderator

Read the full UDaily Article

University of Delaware Weinberg Center/ECGI Corporate Governance Symposium

Past Events

Friday, March 11, 2022, 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM @Virtual : 

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Agenda

Co-sponsored with the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

In collaboration with the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance and the Department of Finance at the Lerner College of Business & Economics, at the University of Delaware, will host its 2022 Annual Corporate Governance Symposium.

Lunch Presentation: 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm ET

Between the morning and afternoon paper presentation sessions, there will be a presentation by BlackRock on proxy voting choices.

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Papers:

The following are the eight papers that have been selected for presentation at the 2022 Symposium:

Morning Session: Watch Video

  • Is History Repeating Itself? The (Un)predictable Past of ESG Ratings Florian Berg (MIT), Kornelia Fabisik* (Frankfurt), and Zacharias Sautner (Frankfurt) 
    Discussant:  Youngjun Dragon Tang (University of Hong Kong)
  • Read the Paper
  • ESG Lending Sehoon Kim (Florida), Nitish Kumar* (Florida), Jongsub Lee (Seoul National), and Junho Oh (Hong Kong Polytechnic
    Discussant: Lubo Litov (Univeristy of Oklahoma)
    Read the Paper
  • Climate Risk Disclosure and Institutional Investors Emirhan Ilhan* (Frankfurt), Philipp Krueger (Geneva), Zacharias Sautner (Frankfurt), and Laura T. Starks (Texas)
    Discussant:  Henri Servaes (London Business School)
    Read the Paper
  • Greenhouse Gas Disclosure and Emissions Benchmarking Sorabh Tomar* (Southern Methodist)
    Discussant:  Matthew Gustafson (Penn State)
    Read the Paper

Afternoon Session:

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  • Proxy Advisory Firms and Corporate Shareholder Engagement Aiyesha Dey (Harvard), Austin Starkweather (South Carolina), and Joshua T. White* (Vanderbilt)
    Discussant:  Nadya Malenko (University of Michigan)
    Read the Paper
  • Paid Leave Pays Off: The Effects of Paid Family Leave on Firm Performance Benjamin Bennett (Tulane), Isil Erel (Ohio State), Léa Stern* (U. Washington), Zexi Wang (Lancaster)
    Discussant:  Daniel Ferreira (London School of Economics)
    Read the Paper
  • Trading Ahead of Barbarians’ Arrival at the Gate: Insider Trading on Non-Inside Information Georgy Chabakauri (LSE), Vyacheslav Fos* (Boston College), Wei Jiang (Columbia)
    Discussant:  Umit Gurun (University of Texas at Dallas)
    Read the Paper
  • Bargaining with Private Equity: Implications for Hospital Prices and Patient Welfare Tong Liu* (Wharton) 
    Discussant:  Alon Brav (Duke)
    Read the Paper

* Presenting author

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Award competition, which seeks to highlight innovative research and includes an award of US$10,000:

  • Is History Repeating Itself? The (Un)predictable Past of ESG RatingsFlorian Berg (MIT), Kornelia Fabisik (Frankfurt), and Zacharias Sautner (Frankfurt)
  • Bargaining with Private Equity: Implications for Hospital Prices and Patient Welfare Tong Liu (Wharton)

Reference Materials for Luncheon Presentation

1.  Blackrock Investment Stewardship 

2. “BlackRock to Permit Some Clients to Vote,” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, October 25, 2021 

3. “BlackRock’s Move to Expand Proxy Voting Choice Creates Unknowns,” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, November 20, 2021 

4.  ISS Voting Policies 2022 

5. “ISS Launches Special Interest Proxy Advisory Guidelines,” by Baker Hostetler.  JDsupra, April 6, 2020

Call for Papers

Submission Fee Form

UDaily – John L. Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Awards

ESG: Practical Advice for Boards Today

Past Events

Thursday, March 3, 2022, 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM

@Clayton Hall, University of Delaware : 

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This three-hour interactive program will address how boards can navigate the evolving and sometimes challenging ESG landscape.  Led by Sabastian V. Niles from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and John W. White from Cravath, Swaine & Moore, the program will include case studies to guide discussion of challenging issues that may be encountered, including investor and stakeholder pressure, fiduciary duties, SEC scrutiny, integrating ESG into strategy and operations, regulatory reporting requirements, evolving private ordering of ESG reporting, internal control procedures related to ESG metrics and targets, shareholder proposals, and, of course, importantly, board, board committee and management responsibilities with respect to ESG.

The program will include comments throughout by Leslie F. Seidman, independent director and chair of the audit committee at General Electric and Moody’s and former Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), as well as insights by Paul A. Beswick, Americas IFRS Leader at EY and former Chief Accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission; Michael L. Arnold, Partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP; Aaron Holmes, Deputy General Counsel and Senior Managing Director at Accenture; Carmen Lu, Counsel at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; among others.  

Bios

Reference Materials

State of Play Today

SEC Role

Getting the ESG Data Right

Board Involvement

Additional Materials

A Conversation with Veta Richardson “Take Six: Essential Habits To Own Your Destiny, Overcome Challenges, And Unlock Opportunities”

Past Events

Friday, December 10, 2021, 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM

@Webinar/Virtual : 

Co-Hosted by the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance and the Women’s Leadership Initiative at University of Delaware 

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REGISTER in advance for this webinar

​Veta Richardson achieved tremendous success as in-house counsel at Sunoco, Inc, as an advisor to three U.S. Presidential administrations, and now as the President and CEO of the Association of Corporate Counsel. In her debut book “Take Six: Essential Habits To Own Your Destiny, Overcome Challenges, And Unlock Opportunities,” she offers strategies for people at various stages of their careers to advance their professional goals. In this webinar, Veta Richardson and Professor Wendy Smith, Faculty Director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the University of Delaware will explore these strategies and how they can inform our own lives. While the book offers lessons that will resonate with everyone, women and diverse professionals will find it especially relevant.  

Bios

Veta Richardson:  Veta Richardson brings more than three decades of experience in the legal, business, and academic realms. She was in-house counsel to Sunoco, Inc. in Philadelphia for +10 years before moving into chief executive roles at two different nonprofit associations focused on serving the in-house counsel community. Veta has been an advisor to three U.S. Presidential administrations (Clinton, Bush, Obama) and countless Fortune 500 executives regarding diversity and inclusion issues. She is a thought leader on governance topics, especially concerning the role of the chief legal officer. Veta is also a fellow of the National Association of Corporate Directors, holds its certified director credential and was named four times to the prestigious Directorship 100 list. She serves on the Advisory Boards of both the John L Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance as well as Ethisphere, Inc, a for-profit company dedicated to advancing business integrity, compliance, and ethics as a strategic corporate advantage. As a new author, Veta’s goal is to unpack career advice that will help others to achieve their professional goals and stay true to themselves along the way.

Wendy Smith: Wendy Smith is the Emma Smith Morris Professor of Management at the Lerner School of Business and Economics and the Faculty Director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the University of Delaware. Her research explores how we solve our greatest dilemmas –tensions between managing for today and exploring for tomorrow, seeking new opportunities and honoring existing traditions, improving social conditions and addressing financial realities. While we tend to address these competing demands as either/or problems that require us to choose between them, Wendy’s research finds that we gain more creative and sustainable options from adopting both/and approaches that accommodate these paradoxical competing demands simultaneously. She describes these ideas in her TedxTalk “The Power of Paradox”. Wendy has been named as a Highly Cited Research – one of the top 0.1% of cited researchers in the field of business – in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Her upcoming book Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems, will be published by Harvard Business School Press (August, 2022).

Women’s Leadership Initiative at University of Delaware:  The Women’s Leadership Initiative at the University of Delaware (WLI) seeks a more just and sustainable world by advancing gender equity from the classroom to the boardroom. To do so, WLI provides education, training and research that enable students, faculty, alumni and executives to foster connections and build critical skills that can support women and advance equity and inclusion.  https://lerner.udel.edu/centers/womens-leadership-initiative/

John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance:  The John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance was established in 2000 at the University of Delaware and is part of the Lerner College of Business and Economics.  It is one of the longest-standing corporate governance centers in academia, and the first and only corporate governance center in the State of Delaware, the legal home for a majority of the nation’s public corporations.  The Center’s mission is to provide a forum for business leaders, members of corporate boards, stockholders, the judiciary, the legal community, academics, students, and others interested in corporate governance issues to interact, learn and teach, with the goal of positively impacting and improving the field of corporate governance and the capital markets.  The Center is recognized as a thought leader in the corporate governance field.  https://www.weinberg.udel.edu/

Weinberg Center Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Weinberg Center Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Homepage News, Past Events

On Monday, October 18, 2021, the Weinberg Center at the University of Delaware celebrated its 20th Anniversary with a reception and dinner in the Gold Ballroom at the Hotel Du Pont. The Center honored its Advisory Board Chair Emeritus, former Chief Justice Myron Steele, for his vision, leadership, and advocacy on behalf of the Center.  Proceeds from this event, derived from private donations, endow the “Myron T. Steele Fellowship” at the Center. The Presenting Sponsor of the dinner was Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP.

Monday, October 18, 2021, 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Held at the Hotel DuPont, Wilmington, Delaware

Speakers for the evening were:

  • The Honorable Andre G. Bouchard, Chair, Weinberg Center Advisory Board; Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
  • Dr. Dennis Assanis, President, University of Delaware
  • Dr. Robin Morgan, Provost, University of Delaware
  • Justin P. Klein, Director, Weinberg Center
  • Kathleen Furey McDonough, Partner and Chair of the Firm, Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP
  • The Honorable Collin J. Seitz, Jr., Chief Justice, Delaware Supreme Court
  • The Honorable Kathaleen McCormick, Chancellor, Delaware Court of Chancery
  • The Honorable Jack B. Jacobs, Former Justice, Delaware Supreme Court; Senior Counsel, Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP
  • Myron T. Steele, Chair Emeritus, Weinberg Center Advisory Board; Former Chief Justice Delaware Supreme Court; Partner, Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP, the Honoree

Remarks of Myron T. Steele (Video)

Weinberg Center Spring 2021 Programs

Weinberg Center Spring 2021 Programs

Past Events

​The Weinberg Center is pleased to announce the following upcoming virtual programs for the Spring 2021:

1.    March 16, 2021, 9:45 am to 3:00 pm ET – University of Delaware Weinberg Center/ECGI Corporate Governance Symposium

Co-Sponsored with the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

The Weinberg Center/ECGI Corporate Governance Symposium will include presentations of the two paper that won the Weinberg/IRRCi Research Paper Competition, as well as the six semi-finalist papers. 

Congratulations to the two winning papers:

  • The ESG-Innovation Disconnect: Evidence from Green Patenting Lauren Cohen (Harvard & NBER) (Presenter), Umit Gurun (UT Dallas), Quoc Nguyen (DePaul U.)
  • The Distribution of Voting Rights to Shareholders Vyacheslav Fos (Boston College) (Presenter), Cliff Holderness (Boston College)

2.    March 23, 2021, 10:00 am to 11:30 am ET – 2021 Corporate Governance Symposium – Roundtable

The Roundtable portion of the Weinberg Center’s 2021 Corporate Governance Symposium will focus on “Governance Issues of Critical Importance to Boards and Investors in 2021.” The confirmed panel includes:

  • Carol Ward, Senior Advisor at Corporate Governance Partners, Inc., and the former Vice President and Corporate Secretary at Mondelēz International, Inc. (Moderator)  
  • Honorable Tamika Montgomery-Reeves, Justice, Delaware Supreme Court
  • Donna Anderson, Vice President and Head of Governance for T. Rowe Price  
  • Aeisha Mastagni,  Portfolio Manager, Sustainable Investment and Stewardship Strategies, California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS)  
  • Pat McGurn, Special Counsel and Head of Strategic Research and Analysis, ISS 
  • Gloria Santona, Of Counsel, Baker & McKenzie LLP, Director for Aon, PLC and the retired Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of McDonald’s 

3.    April 20, 2021, 11:00 am to 12:30 pm ET- “Running the Risk: How Corporate Boards Can Oversee Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Issues”

Co-Hosted with the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets

The Weinberg Center will be co-hosting a webinar roundtable with Ceres, “Running the Risk: How Corporate Boards Can Oversee Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Issues.” The webinar will focus on board oversight of ESG issues. The panel of confirmed participants includes: 

  • Veena Ramani, Senior Program Director, Capital Market Systems, Ceres (Moderator)
  • Peggy Foran, Chief Governance Officer, Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary, Prudential Financial, Inc. 
  • Matt DiGuiseppe, Vice President, Asset Stewardship Team, State Street Global Advisors  
  • Cynthia Williams, Professor, Osler Chair in Business Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
  • Susan Mac Cormac, Partner, Morrison & Foerster 


4.   May 12, 2021, 11:00 am to 12:30 pm ET – John L Weinberg Distinguished Speaker

The Weinberg Center will be hosting a webinar featuring Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster from the Delaware Court of Chancery and the Weinberg Center’s 2021 John L Weinberg Distinguished Speaker.

5.    May 26, 2021, 11:00 am to 12:30 pm ET – “Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters”

The Weinberg Center will be hosting a webinar featuring Jon Lukomnik and James Hawley focusing on their newly published book “Moving Beyond Modern Portfolio Theory: Investing That Matters”.  The book tells the story of how Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) revolutionized the investing world and the real economy, but is now showing its age. MPT has no mechanism to understand its impacts on the environmental, social and financial systems, nor any tools for investors to mitigate the havoc that systemic risks can wreck on their portfolios. The authors believe that it’s time for MPT to evolve.  Jon Lukomnik is Managing Partner of Sinclair Capital LLC and and a Senior Fellow at the High Meadows Institute, and James Hawley is Head of Applied Research at TruValue Labs, San Francisco and Professor Emeritus School of Economics and Business, Saint Mary College of California.