Thank you for joining Corning's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Please welcome Corning's Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and President, Wendell Weeks.
Good morning and welcome to Corning Incorporated's 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I'm Wendell Weeks, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer, and President, and thank you for joining us today. As is our custom, we will conduct the business portion of the meeting first and answer questions at the end. You may ask a question by submitting it in the Q&A section on the web portal, and please feel free to submit questions now. While we may not have time to answer every question, we will address any relevant unanswered questions on our investor relations website after the meeting. If we receive multiple questions on the same or similar topic, we will consolidate those questions- and- answer them together. It is now shortly after noon Eastern Daylight Time on April thirtieth, and this meeting is officially called to order.
Now I'd like to introduce the members of the Board at today's meeting. Ms. Ami Badani, Mr. Leslie Brun, Dr. Stephanie Burns, our Lead Independent Director, Ms. Pamela Craig, Mr. Robert F. Cummings Jr., Mr. Roger W. Ferguson Jr., Mr. Thomas French, Dr. Daniel Hutmacher, and Mr. Kevin Martin. We're also joined today by representatives of PricewaterhouseCoopers, our independent public accounting firm. Finally, the company has appointed Broadridge Financial Solutions to act as Inspector of Election. Ms. Linda Piscitello has taken the oath of Inspector of Election and will be tabulating the vote. After the formal meeting is adjourned, I'll make some brief remarks about how your company is doing, and then we'll have time for a few questions.
Just a note, any votes cast during today's meeting will not be included in this morning's preliminary vote, but they will be included in the official vote reflected in Corning's SEC filing. Now I ask Ms. Gambol to report on our quorum and other matters.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Board of Directors fixed March 2, 2026 as the record date for this meeting. Notice of the meeting was provided on March 20, 2026 to all shareholders of record as of the record date. The Inspector of Election has determined that a quorum is present, and a list of shareholders is available for inspection on the web portal.
Thank you. Now I will present the matters to be voted upon. Please note that we will give shareholders an opportunity to comment on the proposals after all proposals have been presented. The proposals will be presented in the order outlined in the proxy statement. Proposal one is the Election of 10 director nominees to a one-year term. Proposal two is the advisory vote to approve the compensation of our executive officers as described in the proxy statement. Proposal three is the ratification of the audit committee's appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as Corning's independent registered public accounting firm for 2026. Proposal four is the shareholder proposal by the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund, who has submitted a brief supporting statement. Operator, please go ahead with the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund statement.
My name is David Wasiura, Representative of the United Steelworkers Union. I'm here today on behalf of the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund. I hereby introduce the AFL-CIO's shareholder proposal urging an independent board chair policy, which is Item four in the proxy materials. We believe appointing an Independent Chair will strengthen the independent leadership of the Board of Directors and enhance management's accountability towards shareholders. An increasing number of companies have recognized the need for an independent chair. According to The Wall Street Journal, a growing majority of S&P 500 index companies have split the CEO and board chair roles. In 2025, 42% of S&P 500 index companies' Boards were chaired by an Independent Director, compared to 29% a decade ago.
According to Institutional Shareholder Services, Boards with independent leadership, either via an Independent C hair or Lead Director, are more likely to be more diverse, have more balanced tenure, are more responsive to shareholders. While their CEO pay levels are less likely to be excessive relative to their peers. According to Glass Lewis, shareholders are better served when the Board is led by an Independent Chairperson, whom we believe is better able to oversee the executives of the company and set a pro-shareholder agenda without management conflicts that exist when the CEO or other executives also serves as chairman. We are not just shareholders of the company, but we are also its employees. As stakeholders, we have an interest in the long-term success of Corning.
In our view, adopting corporate governance best practices, such as an independent board chair, will help ensure our company will continue to thrive for the next 175 years. Corning is currently benefiting from the boom in artificial intelligence data centers that has created tremendous demand for our company's products. We have seen this technology boom-bust business cycle play out before. After the dot-com crash in the early 2000s, Corning laid off about 15,000 workers, more than 1.3 of its workforce. We believe that strong corporate governance can help protect our company shareholders and employees from another dark chapter. Appointing an Independent Board Chair will help provide objective feedback to management and our company CEO. Appointing an independent board chair makes sense now when times are good to avoid the mistakes of the past.
For these reasons, we urge you to vote for Proposal number four on Corning's proxy card, requesting the adoption of the Independent Chair policy.
Thank you. The Board of Directors recommends a vote against this proposal, and the Board's response is set forth in our proxy statement. If any shareholder would like to make a comment regarding any of the proposals, please submit your comment through the web portal. Thank you. The polls are now open. Any shareholder who has not voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following the instructions there. Shareholders who have already voted do not need to take any further actions. Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I declare the polls for Corning Incorporated's 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders closed. Ms. Gambol, do we have the preliminary voting results?
We do. The Inspector of Election has informed us that the preliminary vote report shows the 10 Director nominees have been duly elected, the compensation of the named Executive Officers has been approved by advisory vote, the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2026 has been ratified, and the shareholder proposal was not approved. We will report the final vote results on a Form 8-K to be filed with the SEC in the next few days.
Thank you. There being no further business to come before the meeting, Corning Incorporated's 2026 annual meeting of shareholders is now adjourned. That concludes the formal portion of Corning Incorporated's Annual Meeting of shareholders. Now, I'd like to shift gears and talk to you about how your company is doing. Now, today's remarks will include some forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially. You can find detailed Risk Factors in our most recent 10-K and also on Corning's website. You should also be aware that we use certain non-GAAP financial measures and performance indicators to assess Corning's financial and operating performance. You can find a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures on our website. This year, we mark Corning's 175th Birthday.
Not only are we among the 25 oldest companies currently listed on the S&P 500, but we closed out 2025 with all-time record sales and EPS and have an incredibly exciting growth outlook. The basis of our success begins with Springboard. A little over two years ago, we outlined our plan to capture strong sales growth as our innovative products and deep customer relationships positioned us to capitalize on important secular trends. Since we had the capacity in place to support the growth, we also expected to deliver a significantly enhanced return profile, with profits growing faster than sales. We set an operating margin target of 20% by the end of 2028 to track our progress. We said we also expected significant improvements in EPS, ROIC, and adjusted free cash flow. Now, in year three of the plan, Springboard has been a tremendous success to date.
Overall, we have fundamentally transformed the company's financial profile, and our success continues. We announced excellent Q1 2026 results this week. Sales were up 18% year-over-year to $4.35 billion, and EPS grew 30% to $0.70. This strong performance served as yet another proof point of the powerful trajectory of Springboard. Comparing Q1 results to Springboard's Q4 2023 starting point, we grew sales 33%. We grew EPS 79%. We expanded operating margin by 390 basis points to 20.2%, and we expanded ROIC by 470 basis points. As many of you will remember, we upgraded our internal Springboard plan in January.
Based on increasing demand for our innovations, we actually plan to upgrade again and extend our plan through 2030 at our investor event in New York City on May 6. As part of our activities, we are planning to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate our 175th Birthday the day after our investor event. It is perhaps fitting that as we celebrate 175 years, we will share a significant Springboard upgrade that highlights one of the most exciting growth periods in our long history. I thank you, our shareholders, for being on this journey with us. We work hard every day to earn your trust and reward your confidence in us. I hope you are as excited as I am about Corning's next 175 years of life-changing innovation.
Now we would like to open things up for shareholder questions and comments. Again, we'll attempt to answer as many questions as time allows, and any relevant questions that we don't get to will be addressed on our company's website. If you receive questions on the same or similar topics, we will consolidate those questions- and- answer them together. Lewis, have we received any shareholder questions?
Yes, Mr. Chairman, we have. The first question, Corning receives an official score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index. While participation in activist rating systems is itself concerning to shareholders, this score also indicates alignment with controversial medical interventions, including hormone regimens and gender transition surgery. What risk calculus does Corning employ in determining its charitable partnerships as well as its policy posture on these issues?
Well, thank you for the question. Allow us the time to reflect on this and provide a written response, addressing the various concerns that you have raised.
Our second and last, at the moment, question is, as you've just indicated in your remarks, you've upgraded the Springboard plan multiple times now, from the original $3 billion- $8 billion and now $11 billion in incremental annualized sales by the end of 2028. You also announced your plan to extend the plan to 2030. What gives you confidence in these targets?
Absolutely. Let me recap the numbers briefly because the performance, in a way, speaks for itself. Comparing our quarter one results that we just posted to Springboard's quarter four 2023 starting point, we grew sales 33%, we grew EPS 79%, we expanded operating margin by 390 basis points to 20.2%, and we expanded our ROIC by 470 basis points. Additionally, during the quarter, we finalized two more hyperscaler deals similar in size and duration to our recently announced multi-year up to $6 billion agreement with Meta. In total, we have powerful momentum across our market access platforms. We're capturing significant sales growth with powerful incremental profit and cash flow, and we expect our momentum to build.
With that phase of our journey well underway, we ask, What's next? That's what we always do at Corning, and that's what got us to 175 years. We ask how we continue to improve the company and become an even better version of ourselves. The demand for our innovations has never been stronger. We've got the brightest opportunity set I've ever seen. Based on that demand, we plan to upgrade again and extend our plan through 2030 at our investor event in New York City on May 6, where we will also introduce our new Photonics Market-Access Platform and lay out how we plan to further transform your company from here to become a significantly larger, more successful company that brings our unique capabilities to bear on even more of the most pressing needs of our society.
What an exciting way to mark Corning's 175th Anniversary and to launch another 175 years of life-changing innovation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was the final question.
That concludes the Q&A portion of the meeting. Thank you again for joining us here today.
This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day.