Beth Young
Beth is a Managing Member of Corporate Governance and Sustainable Strategies LLC (CGSS), an advisory firm that provides consulting services for the investor community on human capital management, sustainability, and stakeholder and public policy strategies, drawing on the extensive corporate governance experience of the CGSS team. She has extensive experience leading investor coalitions, designing approaches to corporate governance and sustainability issues, analyzing the impact of corporate engagements, working with allies and stakeholder groups, drafting petitions for rule-making, commenting on regulatory proposals, drafting and updating proxy voting guidelines, and auditing proxy voting records.
Beth advises public and labor pension funds, foundations, religious organizations, and non-governmental organizations on shareholder initiatives, from initial concept through drafting, SEC no-action defense, and generating investor support. She has played a key role in crafting innovative approaches, including say on pay, proxy access, human rights due diligence, access to medicines, corporate political activity, and racial equity audits.
Prior to CGSS, Beth was Senior Research Associate with The Corporate Library for ten years, where she:
Supervised data collection and analysis regarding shareholder rights and takeover defenses, training and managing a small team of analysts;
Assisted with categorization of data regarding shareholder proposals; wrote and contributed to reports on a variety of corporate governance topics; produced blog posts on current corporate governance topics;
Appeared on television and radio programs to promote reports and address current governance issues; and
Researched and drafted corporate governance reforms for settlements of securities class action and derivative litigation.
Prior to the Corporate Library, Beth was the Shareholder Initiatives Coordinator for the AFL-CIO Office of Investment for four years, where she:
Assisted member unions with shareholder initiatives;
Conducted consent solicitation advancing several governance reforms and a vote-no campaign against a private prison company REIT conversion, including extensive shareholder solicitation;
Drafted and defended proposals submitted by the AFL-CIO staff pension fund;
Updated AFL-CIO Proxy Voting Policies;
Evaluated public equity investment products marketed as worker-friendly; and
Drafted comments on SEC regulatory proposals.
Beth has co-taught (with Lucian Bebchuk) an upper-level seminar on Shareholder Activism for five years at the Harvard Law School. She received a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she was magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, and editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Law Review.