Cristiano advises public company boards and executives on matters of shareholder activism, unsolicited and hostile bids, contested mergers, and other consequential corporate governance topics.
Prior to joining SGA, Cristiano spent 15 years at ISS, the world’s most influential proxy advisor, where he led the Special Situations Research (SSR) team, which covers proxy contests and contentious mergers, globally, for eight years. He previously led ISS’s US Proxy Research team, which covers all uncontested meetings for US-listed public companies, as well as the Latin America Research team.
During his ISS tenure, Cristiano oversaw the transition to proxy contests requiring universal proxy cards and led the analysis of and vote recommendations on more than 200 fights, including Elliott’s campaign at Arconic; Pershing Square’s campaign at ADP; Greenlight Capital’s campaign at General Motors; Third Point’s campaign at Campbell Soup; Trian’s campaigns at Procter & Gamble and Disney; Icahn’s campaigns at Southwest Gas, McDonald’s, and Illumina; Starboard’s campaigns at Box and Huntsman; Engine No.1’s campaign at Exxon; Sachem Head’s campaign at US Foods; Politan’s campaign at Masimo; Ancora’s campaign at Norfolk Southern; and Mantle Ridge’s campaign at Air Products. He also led the research coverage on dozens of contentious M&A transactions, including Broadcom’s hostile offer for Qualcomm; Icahn’s opposition of the Cigna/Express Scripts merger; and Starboard’s opposition of the Bristol-Myers/Celgene merger.
Prior to joining ISS, he served as COO of Analytical Services for TranSecur, a Washington D.C.-based private intelligence firm providing consulting services to multinational companies.
Cristiano has been a featured speaker or panelist at conferences sponsored by the Council of Institutional Investors, Bloomberg, 13D Monitor, Tulane’s Corporate Law Institute, Harvard’s Program on Corporate Governance, and various law firms and investment banks. He has a BS in Biology from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.
