Best global entity management Chevron Corporation
Kari Endries, Chevron Corporation
One of our judges' verdicts on Chevron’s entity management work was succinct but powerful: ‘It’s the gold standard’.
Kari Endries, assistant secretary and managing counsel with Chevron and leader of its subsidiary governance team, points to a few keys to success for entity management. ‘You have to be organized,’ she says. ‘And my team is passionate about what it does.’
You also need good customer service to make sure people in the organization send information you need, she adds. Beyond that, Endries’ team consistently demonstrates innovative thinking, tech-savviness and sheer hard work.
Chevron already has roughly 800 entities, but in October it took on board an additional 130 with the acquisition of Noble Energy. Among the challenges this presented was that Noble had a different entity management system, one of its entities was a public company that needed to be taken private and it had entities in jurisdictions where Chevron does not, such as Israel.
It was said that it would take months to upload information to Chevron’s system. But rather than wait around, Endries’ team set to work and inputted the information.
Making the most of tech The team makes great use of technology to enhance efficiency and accuracy. ‘We joke that Chevron is a tech company,’ Endries says.
For example, she and her colleagues were well prepared for the remote working conditions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic in part because they had already started using a document execution tool that does away with the need to get wet signatures from across the global organization. It also automatically follows up with signers and alerts parties when the document is finalized.
The team has also created a mandatory directors and officers onboarding and training program, which is available globally on an online platform so subsidiary directors and officers around the world can take the training at a time that works for them.
This helps to ensure that these individuals at each entity understand their legal obligations and fiduciary duties – something that is a priority for the team.
You have to be organized. And my team is passionate about what it does
Several subsidiary transactions such as capital contributions, dividends, inter-company loans, return of capital, sale of assets or stock acquisitions and mergers require review and approval by a variety of different departments including legal, governance, tax and treasury.
But the subsidiary governance team has created a unique digital tool that simplifies this review and approval process by standardizing and capturing only the relevant and consistent information that is needed to make decisions. Endries explains that an employee simply fills out an online form requesting approval and the app automatically routes that information to everyone necessary, manages the process and notifies people if they have not responded.
Indeed, automation is a key component of an entity management program with the scope of a company such as Chevron. Another example involves the annual audits of each legal entity’s governance information. The Chevron team uses an automated tool to send alerts to the business owner charged with maintaining certain subsidiaries to review and update entity information. The tool also provides a summary of the entity’s governance profile and identifies and notifies the necessary stakeholders, which then complete the reviews.
Among other things, Chevron’s team has to stay alert for and adapt to new rules and legislation globally. It uses local attorneys and service providers to help create suitable governance and compliance processes for rules that may require the filing of additional information or using specific language on documentation.
Here again the digitalized approval process has come in handy by enabling the team to comply with local governance requirements and file documents around the world on time.
