About the Authors

In Memoriam

Lynn Stout was the Distinguished Professor of Corporate and Business Law, Clarke Business Law Institute, at Cornell Law School. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, Lynn was the Paul Hastings Distinguished Professor of Corporate and Securities Law at UCLA School of Law, and she also taught at Harvard Law School, NYU Law School, Georgetown University Law School, and George Washington National Law Center. She was an internationally recognized expert on corporate governance and business ethics who lectured widely and wrote for the Financial Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. She is the author of more than forty books and articles on corporate governance, business ethics, financial regulation, law and economics, and moral behavior. Her previous book, The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations, and the Public, sparked a global dialogue on the role of corporations in society, while her prior book, Cultivating Conscience: How Good Laws Make Good People, demonstrated how better laws can cultivate unselfish and ethical behavior in many realms, including business and politics.

Lynn was deeply committed to the corporate sector and the belief that given the right laws, business in general and corporations specifically have “enormous potential” to be a positive force for good. She served on the board of governors of the CFA Institute; as an independent trustee and chair of the governance committee for the Eaton Vance family of funds; as a member of the board of advisors for the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program; as an executive advisor to the Brookings Institution’s project on the purpose of the corporation; and as a research fellow for the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research. Lynn also served as a principal investigator and founder of the UCLA-Sloan Foundation Research Program on Business Organizations; as a member of the American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Changing Nature of Board/Shareholder Returns; as a member of the board of directors of the American Law and Economics Association; and as chair of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Business Associations.

Lynn spent her last few months working tirelessly on Citizen Capitalism. It was Lynn’s hope that this book would be a blueprint for how corporations could help to create a brighter future for all. And it was Lynn’s wish that the book be dedicated to “all our children,” referring not only to those for whom we are parents or legal guardians, but to all children in both current and future generations to whom Lynn fiercely believed we owe a responsibility.

Lynn passed away on April 16, 2018, after living bravely with cancer for more than a year. After her death, Lynn posthumously received the CFA Institute 2018 award for Leadership in Professional Ethics and Standards of Investment Award, in honor of Daniel J. Forrestal III.

Lynn has left us with a remarkable gift, and for that we are eternally grateful.

Sergio Gramitto is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, where he also serves as the assistant director of the Clarke Program on Corporations and Society. He studied law at University of Milan, and received a Ph.D. from Bocconi University. Sergio is consistently invited to speak at universities around the world.

Tamara Belinfanti is a Professor of Law at New York Law School, where she teaches in the area of contracts and business law. With over fifteen years of experience in corporate law practice and academia, she has written numerous articles and opinion pieces and is a recognized expert on corporate governance, shareholder engagement, and the proxy advisory industry. In 2013, she was named an Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar for her work on the roles and rights of corporations in the broader societal sphere. Prior to entering academia, she was an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, where she focused on capital markets and debt restructuring work, and served as co-editor of the securities law treatise, U.S. Regulation of the International Securities and Derivatives Market (Aspen, 2003). Tamara is a board trustee of the Brooklyn Museum and Saint Ann’s School; she sits on the advisory board of the Brooklyn Community Foundation and the Brooklyn Ballet; and she has served on various professional committees such as the New York City Bar Securities Regulation Committee. In 2015, she cofounded (with Lynn Stout) the Ethical Shareholder Initiative, a nonprofit focused on building more sustainable capital markets. She received her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 2000.