Nasdaq and Regions Financial win top honors at Corporate Governance Awards

Nasdaq and Regions Financial Corporation last night won two of the top categories at Governance Intelligence’s 17th annual Corporate Governance Awards.

Nasdaq was named governance team of the year (large cap) and Regions Financial was named governance team of the year (small to mid-cap).

The companies were presented with their awards at a gala event in New York. The ceremony capped two days of events hosted by Governance Intelligence at Governance Live: the Corporate Reporting Forum and the Corporate Governance Forum.

The Corporate Governance Awards celebrate outstanding achievements by the governance profession in areas such as hosting AGMs, compliance and ethics programs, ESG reporting, entity management, use of technology, proxy statements, investor engagement and corporate transactions.

Those shortlisted for honors in 21 categories included 45 different companies and 11 individuals. This year, for the first time, those honors included an award for best director training and education program.

The top individual prizes this year went to Kevin Bohl of Ventas as governance professional of the year (large cap) and Christina Lai of Robinhood Markets for governance professional of the year (small to mid-cap). Nicole Fritz of The Kraft Heinz Company was named rising star.           

The Kraft Heinz Company also won the award for best AGM. Coeur Mining was honored in the best compliance and ethics program (small to mid-cap) category, while PepsiCo won for best compliance and ethics program (large cap).

In the boardroom, Prudential Financial was named as having the best board assessment program, while Nasdaq was celebrated for having the best director training and education program.

The Greenbrier Companies took home the best ESG reporting (small cap) award while AMN Healthcare Services won in the same category for mid-cap companies and Nasdaq was honored in the large-cap section.          

Prudential Financial won the best global entity management title this year. Visa took the honors for best governance around a corporate transaction.            

Century Aluminum Company was named as having the best proxy statement (small cap).    Coeur Mining took the prize for best proxy statement (mid-cap) and Kraft Heinz was the winner in the best proxy statement category for large-cap firms.     

Regions Financial was awarded in the best shareholder engagement (small to mid-cap) category, while The Allstate Corporation won for best shareholder engagement (large cap). JLL was honored in the best use of technology category.

The lifetime achievement award was presented to Helle Bank Jørgensen.

Awards judges

The Governance Intelligence editorial team reviewed all nominations submitted by the industry. Once the short lists were finalized, they and their supporting evidence were passed to an independent judging panel to select the winners. Judges recused themselves from categories as appropriate.

The distinguished judges for this year’s awards were:

• Emma Butler, manager for investment stewardship at Dimensional Fund Advisors
• Jacqueline Condron, senior vice president for proxy voting & governance at Mellon, a division of Mellon Investments Corporation
• Joan Conley, board member at EJF Acquisition Corp and Tigo Energy
• Matthew Geekie, senior vice president, secretary and general counsel at Graybar
• Eileen Kamerick, non-executive director at Associated Banc-Corp, ACV Auctions, VALIC Company and Legg Mason Closed End Funds
• Ben Maiden, editor-at-large, Governance Intelligence.

Information about the awards and the ceremony can be found by clicking here.