It’s that time of year again…Proxy Season! If your company is registered with the SEC you are likely very busy preparing and reviewing proxy statements required for the annual meeting so your shareholders can vote on all the matters presented to them.

As you plan for your 2021 Proxy Season, I share my checklist of trends and key topics your shareholders (and all stakeholders) will be interested in:

·       Be ready to report on the ethnic, racial and gender diversity of your board composition and target minimum 30% diverse.

·       Articulate your companies ESG program – pick a framework and disclose your plans.

·       Plan to proactively meet and have live engagement with your top ten shareholders.

·       Articulate your plans to strengthen tech readiness and cyber risk mitigation.

·       Review 2021 policy’s and address 2021 regulatory landscape changes.

·       Create a plan for deeper employee engagement in a distributed virtual environment.

·       Turnover is at a very high rate – have a plan for how you will keep your best employees.

·       Be sure your CEO is social media trained and ready to respond on current events.

·       Review your company’s data privacy policy and look at your algorithms through the lens of AI ethics.

·       Make 2021 the year your company gets out in front and focuses on Gen Zero as a robust future employee and customer base.

As you go through your proxy readiness process, be sure to keep these top trends in mind as they will be the topics shareholders will be most interested in.

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