CGRI research spans these topics: general principles, board of directors, leadership and succession planning, compensation, audit and risk, shareholders, and proxy advisory.
Feet to the Fire: How Should Companies Tie Executive Compensation to Climate Targets?
In recent years, many companies have made voluntary pledges to reduce their carbon footprint. In this Closer Look, we examine how some companies…
CEO Succession and The Walt Disney Company
CEO succession planning is a critical exercise for any organization. And yet, experience clearly demonstrates that many companies fail to…
Mega Grants: Why Would A Board Approve Nine-Figure CEO Pay?
Recent years have seen a reemergence of the practice of awarding “mega grants” to CEOs. Mega grants are large, one-time equity awards granted in…
Seven Gaping Holes in our Knowledge of Corporate Governance
In Closer Look, we highlight significant “holes” in our knowledge of corporate governance. These are central issues where insufficient or…
The Evolving Battlefronts of Shareholder Activism
In this Closer Look, we consider current trends in shareholder activism and their potential impact. We examine the introduction of universal…
ESG Investing: What Shareholders Do Fund Managers Represent?
In this Closer Look, we examine individual investor perception of ESG to gauge their concern for environmental and social issues, their view of…
ESG Ratings: A Compass without Direction
ESG ratings firms provide information to investors, analysts, and corporate managers about the relation between corporations and non-investor…
VICI Properties: Creating Value from the Ashes of Caesar’s Demise
In this Closer Look, we use the example of VICI Properties — a publicly traded REIT that emerged from the bankruptcy of Caesar’s Entertainment —…
Firing and Hiring the CEO: What Does CEO Turnover Data Tell Us About Succession Planning?
We examine CEO turnover and succession planning using a unique and highly comprehensive data set from the company exechange. Exechange applies a…
Seven Myths of ESG
The trend to incorporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) matters into corporate boardrooms and capital markets is pervasive.…
Are Narcissistic CEOs All That Bad?
The role that a CEO’s personality plays in corporate outcomes is a topic of considerable interest, particularly the relation between narcissistic…
The General Counsel View of ESG Risk
In this Closer Look, we examine the General Counsel perspective of Environmental, Social, and Governance matters. General Counsel offer an…
Stock-Option Financing in Pre-IPO Companies
In this Closer Look, we examine a new industry that has arisen in recent years to facilitate the financing of stock-option exercises for employees…
Human Capital Disclosure: What Do Companies Say about Their “Most Important Asset”?
In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission revised human capital disclosure rules to improve shareholder understanding of how human capital…
Protests from Within: Engaging with Employee Activists
Recent years have witnessed a growing trend of stakeholder issues becoming prominent in discussions of corporate governance. One source of this…
Gaming the System: Three “Red Flags” of Potential 10b5-1 Abuse
The SEC adopted Rule 10b5-1 to provide an affirmative defense against allegations of insider trading to executives whose jobs regularly expose…
Environmental Spinoffs: The Attempt to Dump Liability Through Spin and Bankruptcy
Environmental costs are a legal obligation of companies and proper corporate governance requires that they be dealt with responsibly.…
Sharing the Pain: How Did Boards Adjust CEO Pay in Response to COVID-19?
Scrutiny of CEO pay increases during times of economic stress, when it is not clear how much pay CEOs should receive when corporate profitability…
Blindsided by Social Risk: How Do Companies Survive a Storm of Their Own Making?
Our concept of risk continues to broaden and now includes instances in which representatives of a company make statements, actions, or decisions…
The Spread of COVID-19 Disclosure
Investors rely on corporate disclosure to make informed decisions about the value of companies they invest in. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a…
Diversity in the C-Suite
There has been a broad push in recent years to increase diversity at the board and CEO levels of public corporations. Despite this effort,…
The First Outside Director
Little is known about the process by which pre-IPO companies select independent, outside board members — directors unaffiliated with the company…
Governance of Corporate Insider Equity Trades
Corporate executives receive a considerable portion of their compensation in the form of equity and, from time to time, sell a portion of their…
Pay for Performance … But Not Too Much Pay: The American Public’s View of CEO Pay
Among the controversies in corporate governance, perhaps none is more heated or widely debated across society than that of CEO pay. The views that…