Chris Cernich is a Founding Partner and Managing Director of Strategic Governance Advisors.
Chris was formerly Managing Director at Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), the world’s largest proxy advisor with 1,400 institutional shareholder clients managing more than $20 trillion in assets, where he led the international team providing analysis of and voting recommendations on mergers & acquisitions, economic proposals, and fights for corporate control. During his tenure he covered more than 250 proxy contests for board seats, including the fights at DuPont, Canadian Pacific, Forest Labs, Biogen Idec, Agrium, Hess, Wynn Entertainment, MGM, and Darden; as well as many contentious mergers and hostile takeover attempts, including Air Products/AirGas, Roche/Illumina, Valeant/Allergan, Gannett/Tribune, and Axiall/Westlake; Dell’s go-private, Chiquita/Fyffe/Cutrale, Marriott/Starwood/Anbang, Axis/PartnerRe/Exor, Comcast/Time Warner Cable/Charter, Williams/Energy Transfer, and Towers Watson/Willis Group.
Chris has been a featured speaker or panelist at conferences sponsored by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvard’s Program on Corporate Governance, Penn’s Institute for Law and Economics, Berkeley’s Center for Law, Business and the Economy, the Milken Institute’s Global Conference, and various law firms and investment banks. He has been interviewed in many leading financial publications on aspects of corporate governance, shareholder activism, and M&A.
