Corporate governance expert Charles Elson has been named one of the most influential people in the field by Directorship magazine.

Elson, who is the Edgar S. Woolard Jr. Chair of Corporate Governance and director of the highly regarded John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance in UD’s Lerner College of Business and Economics, was listed No. 17 in the Directorship 100, published this fall.

“When we set out to name the 100 most influential players in corporate governance, our goal was to recognize those who are driving the corporate governance agenda inside America’s boardrooms,” the magazine says. “The list includes directors, professors, regulators, politicians, advisers and others who have made a lasting impact.”

The list also includes the Delaware courts, including the Court of Chancery and the state Supreme Court, at No. 5. It takes particular note of Chancellor William B. Chandler III, AS ’73, and E. Norman Veasey, former Delaware chief justice and former member of the UD Board of Trustees.

The Elson citation notes that about 60 percent of all Fortune 500 companies and one-half of the firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange are incorporated in Delaware, providing him a “singular vantage point” from which to monitor “how American companies are run.”

“This is a very well-deserved recognition. Charles Elson’s expertise and reputation in corporate governance issues are unsurpassed,” Conrado (Bobby) M. Gempesaw, dean of the Lerner College, says. “As the director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, he has been instrumental in providing a forum for directors, corporate governance experts and the legal community to come together to examine current issues. As a strong advocate for sound and ethical corporate governance policies and practices, he has also played a key role in providing quality education to the next generation of business leaders—our students.”