The 2017 Tech 40: Robert Schifellite

Providing the proxy voting infrastructure used by more than 90 percent of North American public companies and mutual funds, New York–based Broadridge Financial Solutions collects a wealth of data on shareholder participation and opinions. It collaborates with the PwC Governance Insights Center to produce ProxyPulse reports that reveal the percentage of retail shares voted and levels of support for director candidates. Also in the report covering the July 1–December 31 annual meeting mini-season: For the first time, the majority of retail investors (52 percent, up from 43 percent the year before) received their proxy materials electronically — a milestone for the Broadridge Investor Communication Solutions (ICS) business and Robert Schifellite, the segment's president and Broadridge's corporate senior vice president. ICS, which accounts for more than three-fourths of Broadridge's $3 billion in annual revenue, is Schifellite's platform both for e-business innovation (as in the ProxyEdge institutional proxy management system, and online and mobile voting capabilities) and for advocating more efficient — often meaning paperless — corporate governance and customer communications as a matter of principle. "This is not the same old proxy business," says Schifellite, 59, explaining Broadridge's expanding digital ambitions. In view of marketplace and technology trends and business imperatives, "we have to continue to be a leader in digital," adds Schifellite, who has worked for Broadridge and predecessor ADP Brokerage Services since 1992.