Corporate Secretary
A governance officer responsible for board compliance, official records, and shareholder meeting logistics.
What is Corporate Secretary?
The corporate secretary is a senior governance officer responsible for ensuring a company's compliance with legal and regulatory requirements related to corporate governance. Key responsibilities include organizing and documenting board and committee meetings, maintaining statutory registers and corporate records, coordinating proxy statement preparation and mailing, filing governance-related documents with regulators such as the SEC, and advising the board on governance obligations and developments. In the US, the corporate secretary role is often held by an attorney and may be combined with the general counsel function. The Society for Corporate Governance provides professional standards and certification for corporate secretaries.
Example
Apple's corporate secretary coordinates the annual proxy statement process — one of the most complex governance documents public companies produce — ensuring that director biographies, executive compensation disclosures, and shareholder proposal responses are accurately prepared and filed with the SEC ahead of the AGM.
Source: Society for Corporate Governance