Episode Details

0:00 -- Intro.

1:40 -- Start of interview.

2:25 -- Lydia's "origin story". 

3:35 -- On her career at Chevron, particularly as Corporate Secretary and Chief Governance Officer. She was the first woman elected Officer at Chevron.

7:22 -- On board agendas.

10:28 -- On how the Corporate Secretary and Chief Governance Officer roles have evolved in U.S. public corporations. 

13:56 -- Her personal path to corporate board memberships.

1. [14:36] HCC Insurance Holdings (acquired one year after she joined)
2. [15:19] Aemitis, a renewable fuels and biochemicals company that commercializes innovative technologies to replace traditional fossil fuels.
3. [17:05] Kansas City Southern Voting Trust, a cross-border freight railway company.
4. [19:30] EQT Corporation, a natural gas producer energy company. *She joined the board as part of the dissident slate of shareholder activists.

24:36 -- On the evolution of shareholder engagement in large U.S. public corporations.

29:46 -- Lessons from the Exxon proxy fight with Engine No.1.

32:39 -- On ESG and the anti-ESG trend and the politicization of corporation governance.

36:28 -- On board evaluations.

43:30 -- On board committees. 

47:22 -- On the FTX collapse and its lack of a board and governance generally.

49:25 - The books that have greatly influenced her life: 

1. The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, by Eleanor Roosevelt (1961)

50:11 - Her mentors, and what she learned from them. "You've got to have a board of mentors."

53:34 -  Quotes she thinks of often or live her life by. "It's 25% the decision you make and 75% what you make of the decision."

54:10 - An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves: She's a big KU Jayhawks fan, plus a Peloton user/fan.

55:37 - The living person she most admires: Volodymyr Zelensky (also Liz Cheney and Henry Kissinger).

Lydia Beebe is a public company corporate director and currently serves as Principal of LIBB Advisors LLC, a corporate governance consulting firm. Lydia previously held a number of senior roles at Chevron Corporation, including Corporate Secretary and Chief Governance Officer, from 1995 to April 2015. She previously was Co-Director of Stanford Institutional Investors’ Forum and Senior Counsel for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati P.C. 

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