IBM: Best Shareholder Engagement United States 2022

IBM was an early adopter of the principle of shareholder engagement. As early as 2005, long before the term was in general use, the world’s longest-established tech company had developed sophisticated and ground-breaking proxy season engagement strategies. In the following years the company turned its attention to developing its off-season engagement approach. Teams regularly meet with investors across the whole year, and feedback from these meetings is carefully scrutinised to ensure response is up-to-the-minute. IBM teams constantly monitor investor trends, seeking out developments across a range of topics. An illustration of the company’s determination to stay at the cutting edge is its focus on the transformational importance of 21st century technologies – hybrid cloud and AI. IBM has updated its client engagement model to ensure opportunities in these areas are understood by clients and staff alike. The company, which employs 350,000 people across 170 countries, places significant emphasis on the continual training of staff to ensure all are up-to-date with latest developments. The company’s aim is to embed a client-centric culture, using its range of hardware, software and consulting experience to find solutions to business challenges. In its 111 years in business IBM has come a long way from the production of time clocks and punch card machines, but its focus on reinvention has remained constant. The company has picked up five separate CFI.co awards since 2019, including in this category in 2021. The judges have no hesitation in presenting the company with the 2022 award, Best Shareholder Engagement United States.