Thank you for standing by. We appreciate your time and participation in Ashland's 2026 annual meeting of stockholders. My name is Andy Klugman, and I am Ashland's Director of Investor Relations. Welcome. Before we begin, there are a few housekeeping items to cover. This meeting is being held virtually, and all participants are in listen-only mode. If you would like to ask a question, please use the question field on your portal. We will address questions at the end of the call. I will now turn things over to Guillermo Novo, Ashland's Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, who will preside over today's meeting.
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. My name is Guillermo Novo, and I am the Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Ashland. Along with my fellow directors and executive officers of Ashland, I would like to welcome you to our 2026 annual meeting of shareholders. This meeting will now come to order. Today, we're conducting a virtual meeting, and our stockholders are attending via the web portal. We will conduct the business portion of our meeting first and answer questions at the end of the meeting. Robin Lampkin, our Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Ashland, will serve as Secretary of the Meeting and record the proceedings. Ashland has appointed Alliance Advisors, LLC, to act as the Inspector of Elections. Mr. Vega from Alliance is with us today and has taken the oath of Inspector of Elections.
The Inspector of Elections has advised us that a quorum is present at the meeting, so I declare the meeting duly and lawfully convened. The meeting is now open and ready for business. Most voting was completed by proxy prior to the meeting, and these votes already have been tabulated by the Inspector of Elections. It is now 10:35 A.M. Eastern Time on Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, and the polls are open. Any stockholder who has not yet voted and wishes to change their vote may do so by accessing the vote link on the meeting portal used to enter this webcast. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or previously voted via telephone or internet and do not want to change their vote don't need to take any further action. Voting remains open and available to submit changes until we close the polls.
We will close the polls immediately after we have read through and presented all proposals. At this time, I would like to introduce the members of Ashland's Board of Directors, each of whom, including myself, are standing for election. Steven Bishop, former Chief Executive Officer of Procter & Gamble Consumer Health Care. Sanat Chattopadhyay, Executive Vice President of Merck & Co. Manufacturing Division. Suzan F. Harrison, former President of Colgate-Palmolive Company Global Oral Care. Ashish K. Kulkarni, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Kebotix Inc. Susan Main, former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated. Jérôme Peribere, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Sealed Air Corporation. And Scott A. Tozier, former Strategic Advisor and Chief Financial Officer of Albemarle Corporation. Ms.
Lampkin has provided an affidavit of mailing from Alliance Advisors certifying that due notice of the meeting was provided and that a notice of internet availability for the proxy materials was sent to stockholders of record as of November 21st, 2025. Ashland's 2025 annual report, which includes the financial statements certified by Ernst & Young was sent or made available to each stockholder entitled to vote at this meeting. An electronic copy of the annual report is also available on the website used to access this meeting. Each of you should have access to the agenda of today's meeting located at the lower right corner of the web portal. Provided with the agenda are also the rules of conduct for the meeting. We ask that you please abide by these rules. We have three items of business on the agenda this morning.
The first item of business is to elect eight directors to hold office until the next annual meeting of stockholders and until each of their successors have been elected and qualified. As mentioned, in addition to myself, the nominees are Stephen Bishop, Sanat Chattopadhyay, Suzan F. Harrison, Ashish K. Kulkarni, Susan Main, Jérôme Peribere, and Scott A. Tozier. The second item of business is to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as Ashland's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal 2026. Representing Ernst & Young today is Joe Maracca. The third and final item of business is to consider and vote upon a non-binding advisory resolution approving the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers. Now that all proposals have been presented and everybody has had the opportunity to vote, I declare the polls of the 2026 Ashland Inc. Annual Stockholder Meeting closed.
We have been informed by the Inspector of Elections that preliminary vote report shows that each of the nominees for director have been duly elected to serve as directors of the company until the next annual meeting of stockholders. The ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal 2026 has been approved by the stockholders, and the resolution on a non-binding advisory basis to approve the compensation for named executive officers has been approved by the stockholders. The final results of the voting will be published in a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC no later than January 23rd, 2026. The Form 8-K will also be available on Ashland's website. This concludes the formal agenda of Ashland's annual meeting, and the formal meeting is adjourned.
With that, before we conclude today, I would like to see if there are any questions from shareholders today.
Guillermo, we have no questions in the queue.
Okay.
With no further questions, the informal meeting is also adjourned. We appreciate your support and thank you for your participation.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.