Elson, who is the Edgar S. Woolard Jr. Chair of Corporate Governance and director of the highly regarded John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance in UD's Lerner College of Business and Economics, was listed No. 17 in the Directorship 100. The list was featured in the magazine's September issue.
“When we set out to name the 100 most influential players in corporate governance, our goal was to recognize those who are driving the corporate governance agenda inside America's boardrooms,” the magazine said. “The list includes directors, professors, regulators, politicians, advisers and others who have made a lasting impact.”
The Directorship 100 was topped by the powerful California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), and included the Securities and Exchange Commission, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), business leader Warren Buffett and the Delaware courts, including the Court of Chancery and the State Supreme Court.
The Elson citation notes that about 60 percent of all Fortune 500 companies and one-half of the firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange are incorporated in Delaware, providing him a “singular vantage point” from which to monitor “how American companies are run.”
"This is a very well-deserved recognition. Charles Elson's expertise and reputation in corporate governance issues are unsurpassed,” Conrado (Bobby) M. Gempesaw, dean of the Lerner College of Business and Economics, said. “As the director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, he has been instrumental in providing a forum for directors, corporate governance experts and the legal community to come together to examine current issues. As a strong advocate for sound and ethical corporate governance policies and practices, he has also played a key role in providing quality education to the next generation of business leaders--our students."
Elson is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Virginia School of Law. He handled mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance as a lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York during the late 1980s and later served as a professor of corporate law at Stetson College of Law in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Since arriving at UD in 2000, Elson has featured sought-after panelists in regular discussions as part of a unique undergraduate course and also has offered the nation's business leaders a popular Directors College for corporate board members.
The panel discussions have featured some of the leading business executives, academics, lawyers, jurists and journalists. One in particular, in 2003, provided the venue for an historic meeting between federal Securities and Exchange Commission members and the state judiciary, which plays an important role in shaping national corporate law.
The Directorship 100 listing on the Delaware Courts, which rank fifth, takes note of Chancellor William B. Chandler III, a UD alumnus, and E. Norman Veasey, former chief justice and former member of the UD Board of Trustees.
Article by Neil Thomas