Episode Details

0:00 Intro.

1:42 Start of interview

2:26 Stilpon's "origin story". He grew up in Greece and studied law at the University of Thessaloniki. He later got an LLM at Harvard Law School. He practiced corporate law in Greece, but left the country permanently in the mid 1980s. He joined the OECD where he became the first Head of the Corporate Affairs Division. In that position, he lead the team which produced the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance (1999). "The corporate governance issues were very linked to the privatization issues at the time." He later left the OECD in Paris to London, where he started his own firm.

9:36 The origin of his firm Nestor Advisors in 2002. "The idea was to advise companies and their boards on corporate governance matters, since they needed the advice." "The focus initially was on emerging markets, then on OECD markets." Banking is the core sector that they address  ("at least 2/3 of our clients are banks.") "Personally, my two areas of focus are the private family, and the banks."

14:15 On the acquisition of Nestor Advisors by Morrow Sodali in 2021. "The sale of Nestor Advisors was always part of my horizon for two reasons: 1) I wanted an exit, and 2) the firm needed to be a part of something bigger in order to go to the next level."

18:04 On the debate of the purpose of the corporation (the shareholder vs stakeholder debate). The BRT '19 restatement that reignited the debate in the U.S. (see Marty Lipton vs Bebchuk). "Milton Friedman said that the social responsibility of the corporation was to increase profits, and that is not a purpose (it's a responsibility)." "The first responsibility for a private economic institution like a corporation is indeed to be profitable (if it's not profitable over time, it goes down and it will not achieve any other purpose." "The process for a company outlining its purpose might be a useful thing, for its strategic focus and as a communications tool."

24:47 On ESG: "the European approach is different to the US. The latter has more of a market approach with pressure from institutional investors and other market actors, whereas the EU is treating this more as an issue of regulation. There is emerging set of rules that are quite tough, such as with the new directive on disclosure of sustainability, disclosure on how to get to net-zero for investors, EU taxonomy of sustainable activities, the obligation of companies to do due diligence on everything that has to do with sustainability.

29:33 On companies withdrawing from Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine. (see Jeffrey Sonnenfeld's list from Yale,

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