Introduction | 1 Shearman & Sterling
We are pleased to share
Shearman & Sterling's 2017
Corporate Governance &
Executive Compensation Survey
of the 100 largest U.S. public
companies. This year's Survey,
the 15th in our series, examines
some of the most important
governance and executive
compensation practices and
identifies best practices and
emerging trends.
This year's Survey presents
our findings and insights on
several of the key issues that
have been increasingly focused
on by shareholders. These
include proxy access, IPO
governance, including multi-class
voting structures, shareholder
activism, diversity, shareholder
engagement, compensation
clawback policies and the
director self-evaluation process.
In many cases we comment on
the evolution of these practices
over time as we have surveyed
many of these topics in the past.
We also report on perennial
topics such as say-on-pay, board
size, composition and leadership,
shareholder proposals, stock
ownership guidelines for executives
and directors, executive perks
and director compensation.
We hope this Survey provides
relevant data and insights as
to how leading companies are
approaching important governance
issues and allows our readers
to benchmark the corporate
governance and compensation
practices of their institutions
against those of the 100 largest
U.S. public companies.
The 2017 Survey was produced
under the leadership of the
following Shearman & Sterling
partners:
Richard Alsop
John Cannon
Stephen Giove
Kyungwon (Won) Lee
Doreen Lilienfeld
Lona Nallengara
Clare O'Brien
INTRODUCTION