ConocoPhillips’ Shannon Kinney: Persuasion through Engagement

When stockholders disappointingly declined to support ConocoPhillips’ “say-on-pay” vote in 2017, the energy giant appointed one of the company’s deputy general counsels, Shannon Kinney, to establish a group to participate in an important investor engagement effort.

As leader of the “Governance Leadership Team,” Kinney reached out to more than half of ConocoPhillips’s investors in late 2017. She coordinated and participated in stockholder meetings with the team and the company’s board of directors, which included investors representing about 42% of the business’s outstanding shares and resulted in enhancements in corporate governance, environmental, social and executive compensation matters.