Last year was a good year to be an activist; not so much to be a company on the receiving end of a campaign. The wave of shareholder activism last year had corporate leaders on edge.

It’s not a secret that activist hedge funds may not represent the interests of a company’s shareholder base. But a report from Institutional Shareholder Services shows that they don’t look like them, either.

Steve Balet, managing director of Strategic Governance Advisors and Scott Barshay, partner and head of M&A at Paul Weiss, discuss how the C-suite and board should think about, and prepare for, an activist investor.

In the fight against shareholder activism, Facebook won. At least for now. Activists pushed the company to split the chairman and CEO role for Mark Zuckerberg, who holds both titles and has come under a barrage of criticism over his handling of security and privacy issues in the last year.

Every year, growing companies consider exploring public markets, where they can find the huge benefit of immediate access to capital. But taking that step also can be a large expense, and it can change the way companies operate, what management teams focus on and how autonomous they are. Senior executives making decisions about going public have a lot to think about.