Individual Investors Drive Corporate Governance Reform Through the Proxy Process

Individual investors who file shareholder proposals have played a significant and consequential role in advancing sound corporate governance. Yet their contribution is often overlooked.

Recent debate over the shareholder proposal process has drawn strong responses from institutional investors, faith-based investors, and pension funds seeking to protect shareholders’ ability to engage companies through proposals. Missing from much of that discussion is the impact of individual investors – particularly John Chevedden and James McRitchie.

Together, Chevedden and McRitchie have filed thousands of proposals asking companies to improve their governance policies and practices. Institutional investors frequently support these reforms, regardless of whether the proposal comes from a prominent institution or an individual shareholder. Some of the practices they championed have become widely accepted; others remain contested. Not every proposed reform is necessarily right for every company, but each deserves thoughtful scrutiny and consideration.

Guest post by Timothy Smith, Senior Policy Advisor, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. research assistance by Sehr Khaliq, ICCR Director of Evaluation. Originally posted to ICCR on August 21, 2026. EDITORIAL NOTE: The source narrative says 125 proposals received more than 25% support, but the complete source tables contain 123 such entries. This version uses 123 so the prose matches the supplied data. Confirm with ICCR before changing the count. I also bolded the links and created more of them, as well as adding the big attention grabbing graphic and following song. (Both added using AI).

Voices in the Proxy Light

Persistent proponents, measurable influence

Companies respond to individual proponents in sharply different ways. Some engage constructively and adopt full or partial reforms. Others seek to exclude their proposals through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s no-action process or through litigation.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins recently criticized the concentration of filings by one individual. In a July 2026 speech to the Society for Corporate Governance, he noted that one person was the sole or lead proponent for approximately 41% of shareholder proposals voted on during the season. He treated that concentration, and the fact that only 8% of those proposals won majority support, as evidence that the system needs reform.

That framing misses the larger point. A proposal need not win a majority to identify a governance weakness, attract substantial investor concern, or prompt a board to act. Support from one-quarter, one-third, or nearly one-half of votes cast is consequential. It signals that a significant portion of the company’s investors believes the board should address the issue.

Even skeptics have acknowledged Chevedden’s influence. In a 2013 Reuters special report, James Copland of the Manhattan Institute described him as “leading the intellectual curve, getting proposals out there before they start to get traction.”

For more background, see ICCR’s The Power of Individual Investors to Catalyze Change, McRitchie’s John Chevedden: Economy-Class Investor Advocate, and Three Shareholder Rights Advocates: Gilbert, Chevedden, McRitchie.

What the 2026 votes show

In 2026, Chevedden filed more than 200 shareholder proposals. Some were challenged, some did not reach a vote, and others were withdrawn following discussions with management. The data supplied for this article identify 123 proposals that received at least 25% support, including several that won majority support and one that approached 98%.

The proposals covered familiar but important governance subjects: majority voting in director elections, equal voting rights, political-spending disclosure, shareholder rights to call special meetings or act by written consent, independent board leadership, executive equity retention, golden parachutes, and poison pills.

These results rebut the idea that frequent individual proponents merely clutter corporate ballots with idiosyncratic demands. Large numbers of investors repeatedly supported the reforms. The proposal may originate with one person, but the vote reflects the judgment of the broader shareholder base.

Ownership thresholds would silence useful ideas

The SEC and corporate trade associations have debated whether shareholders should be required to own substantially more stock before submitting a proposal. Texas has gone further. Senate Bill 1057, effective September 1, 2025, permits an eligible publicly traded Texas corporation to opt into a regime under which a proponent must hold at least $1 million in voting shares or 3% of the company’s voting shares, maintain that holding for at least six months through the meeting, and solicit holders representing at least 67% of the voting power entitled to vote on the proposal.

Those requirements would effectively exclude most individual investors. They rest on a mistaken premise: that the value of an idea depends on the wealth of the person advancing it. The history of corporate governance shows otherwise. Individual proponents have repeatedly identified reforms that later gained broad investor support and became accepted practice.

The shareholder proposal process gives investors an orderly, nonbinding mechanism to raise issues and test support across the ownership base. Boards remain free to explain their opposition, and shareholders remain free to vote no. Silencing smaller investors before their ideas can be considered does not protect shareholder democracy; it impoverishes it.

The 2026 voting results below demonstrate the important role individual investors play. That role should be protected, not eradicated.

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John Chevedden proposals receiving at least 25% support in 2026

Source: Data supplied by John Chevedden and cross-checked against ICCR’s database. Vote percentages are reproduced from the source document.

Annual Board Election (1)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Annual Board Election	Fortune Brands	John Chevedden	74.20%

Annual Vote Regarding Executive Pay (1)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Annual Vote Regarding Executive Pay	Meta (Facebook Inc.)	John Chevedden	27.10%

Give Each Share an Equal Vote (3)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Give Each Share an Equal Vote	Ford Motor Company	John Chevedden	43.10%
Give Each Share an Equal Vote	United Parcel Service (UPS)	John Chevedden	40.20%
Give Each Share an Equal Vote	Lennar Corporation	John Chevedden	36.70%

Majority Vote (9)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Majority Vote	BJ’s Wholesale	John Chevedden	27.40%
Majority Vote	Datadog, Inc.	John Chevedden	42.30%
Majority Vote	Henry Schein, Inc.	John Chevedden	57.60%
Majority Vote	Calix	John Chevedden	90.60%
Majority Vote	onsemi (On Semiconductor)	John Chevedden	97.90%
Majority Vote	NVIDIA	John Chevedden	86.00%
Majority Vote	OGE Energy Corporation	John Chevedden	79.80%
Majority Vote	WEC Energy Group Inc.	John Chevedden	37.30%
Majority Vote	Wells Fargo & Company	John Chevedden	47.90%

Political Contributions (7)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Political Contributions	Booking Holdings	John Chevedden	35.00%
Political Contributions	Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc.	John Chevedden	39.40%
Political Contributions	Otis Worldwide Corp.	John Chevedden	39.70%
Political Contributions	Akamai Technologies, Inc.	John Chevedden	45.40%
Political Contributions	Steel Dynamics, Inc.	John Chevedden	39.30%
Political Contributions	O’Reilly Automotive, Inc.	John Chevedden	44.20%
Political Contributions	Sonoco Products Company	John Chevedden	41.50%

Require Shareholder Approval for Excessive Golden Parachutes (2)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Require Shareholder Approval for Excessive Golden Parachutes	Humana Inc.	John Chevedden	41.10%
Require Shareholder Approval for Excessive Golden Parachutes	CF Industries Holdings, Inc.	John Chevedden	50.90%

Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings (41)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Goldman Sachs Group Inc.	John Chevedden	36.80%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	First Solar, Inc.	John Chevedden	43.00%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Meritage Homes Corp.	John Chevedden	25.50%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	L3Harris Technologies	John Chevedden	33.20%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	IDEXX Laboratories, Inc.	John Chevedden	41.20%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	MarketAxess Holdings Inc.	John Chevedden	28.40%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	PayPal	John Chevedden	41.10%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	CBRE Group, Inc.	John Chevedden	33.90%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Equinix, Inc.	John Chevedden	30.20%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	HubSpot, Inc.	John Chevedden	79.20%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Autodesk Inc.	John Chevedden	47.50%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Markel Corporation	John Chevedden	37.30%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	AGCO Corporation	John Chevedden	48.60%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	MKS Instruments	John Chevedden	32.60%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Medpace Holdings	John Chevedden	34.10%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Masco Corporation	John Chevedden	42.60%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Group 1 Automotive, Inc.	John Chevedden	25.30%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	EPAM Systems, Inc.	John Chevedden	43.40%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Timken Company	John Chevedden	41.40%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Graphic Packaging Holdings	John Chevedden	42.10%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Arrow Electronics	John Chevedden	37.00%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Regions Financial Corporation	John Chevedden	43.70%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Boston Scientific Corporation	John Chevedden	42.60%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	S&P Global	John Chevedden	40.80%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	AES Corporation	John Chevedden	34.70%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	ICU Medical	John Chevedden	40.70%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Eastman Chemical Company	John Chevedden	27.80%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Equifax Inc.	John Chevedden	36.30%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Entegris Inc.	John Chevedden	31.20%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Cincinnati Financial Corp.	John Chevedden	27.20%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Albemarle Corporation	John Chevedden	57.50%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.	John Chevedden	37.40%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Ally Financial	John Chevedden	29.40%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Murphy Oil Company	John Chevedden	33.90%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	NRG Energy, Inc.	John Chevedden	55.50%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	NVR, Inc.	John Chevedden	47.10%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Sherwin-Williams Company	John Chevedden	43.30%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	TransUnion	John Chevedden	72.00%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Qualcomm Inc.	John Chevedden	42.10%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Keysight Technologies	John Chevedden	65.00%
Right of Shareholders to Call Special Meetings	Micron Technology, Inc.	John Chevedden	42.90%

Right To Act By Written Consent (31)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Right To Act By Written Consent	Netflix, Inc.	John Chevedden	44.40%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Caterpillar Inc.	John Chevedden	39.20%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Delta Air Lines, Inc.	John Chevedden	31.10%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp.	John Chevedden	39.00%
Right To Act By Written Consent	United Airlines Holdings, Inc.	John Chevedden	38.50%
Right To Act By Written Consent	AT&T Inc.	John Chevedden	32.00%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Zoetis, Inc.	John Chevedden	46.70%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Western Union Company (The)	John Chevedden	27.20%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Honeywell International Inc.	John Chevedden	31.90%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Assurant, Inc.	John Chevedden	29.10%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated	John Chevedden	57.00%
Right To Act By Written Consent	ServiceNow, Inc.	John Chevedden	36.50%
Right To Act By Written Consent	CBOE Holdings, Inc.	John Chevedden	42.50%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Crown Holdings Inc.	John Chevedden	42.60%
Right To Act By Written Consent	CMS Energy Corp.	John Chevedden	36.00%
Right To Act By Written Consent	The Hartford Financial Services Group	John Chevedden	45.00%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Annaly Capital Management	John Chevedden	26.60%
Right To Act By Written Consent	McDonald’s Corp.	John Chevedden	41.60%
Right To Act By Written Consent	MasterCard Incorporated	John Chevedden	29.70%
Right To Act By Written Consent	DT Midstream, Inc.	John Chevedden	30.10%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Global Payments Inc.	John Chevedden	25.80%
Right To Act By Written Consent	IBM	John Chevedden	37.30%
Right To Act By Written Consent	The Boeing Company	John Chevedden	39.30%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Texas Instruments Inc.	John Chevedden	44.60%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Cigna	John Chevedden	47.80%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Synopsys, Inc.	John Chevedden	40.00%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Deere & Company	John Chevedden	38.30%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Jabil Circuit, Inc.	John Chevedden	38.40%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Visa Inc.	John Chevedden	32.80%
Right To Act By Written Consent	CVS Health Corp	John Chevedden	40.20%
Right To Act By Written Consent	Verisk Analytics, Inc.	John Chevedden	52.10%

Senior Executive Equity Retention (1)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Senior Executive Equity Retention	Edison International	John Chevedden	37.40%

Separate Chair & CEO (26)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Separate Chair & CEO	Marvell Technology, Inc	John Chevedden	36.00%
Separate Chair & CEO	Mondelez International, Inc.	John Chevedden	31.20%
Separate Chair & CEO	Morgan Stanley	John Chevedden	27.30%
Separate Chair & CEO	Home Depot Foundation	John Chevedden	25.90%
Separate Chair & CEO	Ecolab Inc.	John Chevedden	25.90%
Separate Chair & CEO	Dover Corporation	John Chevedden	35.90%
Separate Chair & CEO	CDW Corp.	John Chevedden	42.60%
Separate Chair & CEO	Lincoln National Corp.	John Chevedden	28.60%
Separate Chair & CEO	Dana Holding Corporation	John Chevedden	27.60%
Separate Chair & CEO	J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.	John Chevedden	35.10%
Separate Chair & CEO	Quest Diagnostics	John Chevedden	25.50%
Separate Chair & CEO	Corpay, Inc.	John Chevedden	29.90%
Separate Chair & CEO	PPG Industries, Inc.	John Chevedden	32.00%
Separate Chair & CEO	AMN Healthcare Services	John Chevedden	25.10%
Separate Chair & CEO	Power Integrations, Inc.	John Chevedden	45.20%
Separate Chair & CEO	Gilead Sciences, Inc.	John Chevedden	27.10%
Separate Chair & CEO	Prudential Financial Inc.	John Chevedden	30.50%
Separate Chair & CEO	Bristol-Myers Squibb Company	John Chevedden	27.40%
Separate Chair & CEO	Avery Dennison Corporation	John Chevedden	39.10%
Separate Chair & CEO	FirstEnergy Corporation	John Chevedden	32.80%
Separate Chair & CEO	Lockheed Martin	John Chevedden	35.20%
Separate Chair & CEO	Eversource Energy	John Chevedden	26.50%
Separate Chair & CEO	Colgate Palmolive	John Chevedden	28.60%
Separate Chair & CEO	West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc.	John Chevedden	46.40%
Separate Chair & CEO	Pfizer Inc.	John Chevedden	28.50%
Separate Chair & CEO	Huntsman Corporation	John Chevedden	25.80%

Shareholder Vote on Poison Pill (1)

Resolution	Company	Lead filer	Vote
Shareholder Vote on Poison Pill	Lumen Technologies (formerly CenturyLink)	John Chevedden	47.80%

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Timothy Smith is Senior Policy Advisor at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Research assistance for this article was provided by Sehr Khaliq, ICCR Director of Evaluation.

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