Why do Investors Vote Against Corporate Directors?
29 Oct 2024
13:30 -15:00
Times are shown in local time.
Open to: All
Castle Teaching Room (Cambridge Judge Business School)
Trumpington St
Cambridge
CB2 1AG
United Kingdom
Join our Finance seminar, in collaboration with the Cambridge Corporate Governance Network
Speaker: Professor Reena Aggarwal, Pembroke Visiting Professor of International Finance at Cambridge Judge Business School
About the seminar topic
Investors now hold directors responsible for newer issues such as climate change and board diversity. We find that different proxies for climate change risk are significantly associated with voting outcome in director elections while social issues are not. Governance remains important.
However, our governance proxy differs markedly from traditional measures. Dissent votes increase when institutions publicly express concerns about climate risk and board diversity in their voting rationale against a director.
Nominating committee members are held responsible for lack of board diversity. Female directors attract less dissent, and their presence on nominating committees and in leadership roles further reduces dissent.
Speaker bio
Reena Aggarwal is the Robert E. McDonough Professor of Finance and Director, Georgetown Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Her research focuses on market regulation, corporate governance, institutional investors, and IPOs. She has published in several outlets including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies. Her work is very well-cited, and she has served on the editorial boards of several finance journals.
Reena is an award-winning teacher and has been named among “Outstanding Faculty” in the Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools; voted as the Outstanding Professor by EMBA students; and described as the Favourite Professor of the Best & Brightest, Poets and Quants. She has been awarded the President’s Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award by Georgetown University, Allan N. Nash Distinguished Doctoral Graduate Award by University of Maryland, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award by BITS Pilani.
She has held several leadership roles including Vice Provost for Faculty and Interim Dean. She was a Visiting Professor at MIT, FINRA Academic Fellow, Academic Fellow at the SEC, Visiting Scholar at the IMF, member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Financing and Capital, Fulbright Scholar to Brazil, and Distinguished Scholar at the Reserve Bank of India’s CAFRAL.
Reena has made many contributions to the profession including serving on the JF Editor Search Committee, AFA Governance Committee, AFFECT mentor, President of FMA, and boards of WFA and ECGI. She is a Senior Fellow of ABFER. Reena received a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and M.M.S. from BITS, India.
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No registration required. If you have any questions about this seminar, please email the Finance Subject Group Administrator.