This article first appeared on Diligent Market Intelligence's Activism newswire. To register for a demonstration and trial of the product, click here.
Employees of activist funds accounted for nearly one in three of the board positions won by dissident investors at U.S. companies in the first half of 2026, as part of wider efforts to bring sector expertise, investment perspective and shareholder alignment into the boardroom.
Diligent Market Intelligence (DMI) data show that activist employees secured 27 of the 85 board positions won by dissidents overall in the six-month period.
“If an activist has a track record of constructive board service in a particular industry, understands the sector well and has demonstrated an ability to work effectively with existing boards and management teams, shareholders may view that individual as more additive,” said Dave Cahoy, a senior managing director on the activism and raid defense team at Evercore.
Sector expertise
An activist can often see its greatest success in installing an in-house candidate when their nominee is viewed as having expertise that can fill a critical gap in the boardroom.
Activist principals secured five board seats at U.S. tech companies in the first half, as artificial intelligence (AI) continued to reshape industries.
“The entire software industry is being rearchitected around AI, and boards navigating that transition need directors who live in that world every day — evaluating AI business models, watching how enterprise buyers are actually adopting the technology, and understanding what the market will reward,” Sagar Gupta, portfolio manager at Anson Funds, told DMI.
Gupta was renominated at Five9 in a revised cooperation agreement. The renewed February deal extended a tenure going back to late 2024, when the call center software provider had said it looked forward to “benefiting from his insights as an experienced technology investor.”
Another activist to install a member of its own team was JANA Partners, whose director of research, Kevin Galligan, was renominated at Rapid7 in a March settlement that also saw the addition of two other external candidates. Rapid7's Chair Corey Thomas cited his "wealth of experience that will help us sharpen our strategy, strengthen execution and drive greater value creation for our shareholders." Galligan joined JANA in 2011 from KKR, where he was a principal in the North American private equity group and had previously worked in the M&A advisory division at Blackstone.
Healthcare expertise also granted activist principals access to the boardroom in H1. Broadwood Partners and Yunqi Capital combined to gain three seats for their leaders in a January pact with STAAR Surgical, an implantable lens manufacturer. Two of the three positions went to Broadwood founder Neal Bradsher and its Executive Vice President Richard le Buhn, who, had amassed board experience at a number of healthcare companies. They were joined by Yunqi Capital’s founder Christopher Wang.
It was a similar story at health information technology company TruBridge, which added Damien Leonard, president of its largest stakeholder Pinetree Capital, to its board as part of an expanded January cooperation agreement. With his background in small-cap and special situation investing in enterprise software and technology businesses, Leonard was welcomed by the chair who cited his finance, capital markets and capital allocation experience, and its value to the board.
The settlement route
All but one of the seats acquired by activist employees in H1 were secured via settlement. Summer Road was the only activist to prevail in installing a team member via the ballot box with a decisive vote in favor of the firm's Chief Investment Officer Rory Held at U.S. grocery chain Ingles Markets’ April 30 annual meeting.
Settlements, however, are more often viewed as the safer and quicker option by both sides.
According to Cahoy, an activist principal can sometimes “be more difficult to elect than an independent nominee with relevant industry or operating experience.”
“Shareholders may view an activist seeking a board seat for one of its own principals as a more aggressive or disruptive way of influencing the company,” said Cahoy, who pointed out that some investor classes, such as index funds, “may be more likely to support unaffiliated director candidates over an activist principal.”
In April, BNY Mellon Strategic Municipals and BNY Mellon Strategic Municipal Bond Fund made the case that adding Paul Kazarian, portfolio manager at Saba Capital Management, to either board would go against the “interests of its long-term stockholders.” For its part, Saba had argued that Kazarian would bring deep closed-end fund (CEF) experience, vast capital markets knowledge and substantial CEF board experience. The nominee ultimately failed to win a seat at either of the funds' June annual meetings.
While acknowledging that such perceptions can exist, Gupta said companies and shareholders nonetheless “respond to alignment,” and that in the end, boards often want to combine the expertise brought by a former CEO with that of an investor “who has spent a decade underwriting dozens of businesses” and who “brings a different lens on capital allocation and strategy.”
“The strongest activist slates usually pair a principal with an operator,” he concluded.
