Best practices for corporate shareholder meetings are constantly evolving to better ensure accuracy, fairness and order. Leverage the 4 latest trends below to maximize success at your company’s next shareholder meeting.
1. Green shareholder meetings. Corporations are looking to further reduce their carbon footprint and ensure environmental responsibility by taking efforts to green their meetings. Miller Tanner Associates, for example, opted to reduce waste and mitigate negative environmental impact for a recent meeting for the pharmaceutical industry. But it needed to do so in a way that would not compromise the training, interactive format and informational elements of the meeting.
The meeting utilized an online interface that allowed virtual participants to submit questions and enabled presenters to interact with the audience. All event materials, binders and surveys were distributed digitally. Learn more about how Miller Tanner Associates achieved a green meeting.
2. The need for transparency. For many corporations, the need to remain transparent to stakeholders and the general public is growing. Some organizations are using their shareholder meetings to achieve this necessary transparency. In October, Oxygen Biotherapeutics Inc. opened up its general meeting to the public by offering a live webcast of the meeting. The webcast included the formal business meeting and the subsequent management presentation. In this presentation, executives provided an update on the company’s product development plans. Interested participants could easily access the webcast from the company’s website.
3. Live voting results. A growing number of organizations are demanding live voting results for optimal efficiency and accuracy. Today’s advanced electronic voting systems and keypads are providing that capability. For example, British Airways used an electronic voting system to display live voting results to shareholders immediately during a recent meeting. The system provided British Airways with automated registration for shareholders, instant identification of registrants, 100% accurate voting results and a detailed audit trail.
4. Additional power for shareholders. Corporations in many different industries are adopting policies allowing shareholders to call special meetings in between annual or planned meetings. This measure prevents shareholders from being isolated in the case that a special meeting is called by a company leader in between an annual meeting. Two of the latest corporations to do so are Sprint and Motorola. Many companies in the oil industry have adopted similar policies, as well.
Try using some of these ideas to improve your next shareholder meeting. Learn how audience response systems offered by IML can help you implement these techniques.
