Welcome to the 2020 annual meeting for Microchip Technology Incorporated. Our host for today's call is Steve Sangee, CEO and Chairman of the Board. I will now turn the call over to your host, Mr. Sangui, you may begin, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the 2020 annual meeting of stockholders of Microchip Technology Incorporated. It's 9 AM. I'm Steve Sangee, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Microchip Technology, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this meeting. We're excited to be hosting our first virtual meeting.
We have stockholders attending via the web portal and the questions can be sent to me via that portal. As is our custom, we will conduct a business portion of our meeting first and answer questions at the end of the meeting. Though we may not be able to answer every question, we will do our best to provide a response to as many as possible. It is now 901 AM Mountain Standard Time on August 18, 2020, and this meeting is officially called to order. Now I would like to introduce our president and Chief Operating Officer and our chief financial officer and the members of the board.
Vinesh Murthy, is our vice president and chief operate is our president and chief operating officer and Eric Bjorn, is our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Now the introduction to the Board of Directors Matt Chapman, retired CEO of Software Assessment Company, Northwest Evaluation Association Association. LB Day, president of L. B. Day And Company, Esther Johnson, retired executive of carrier electronics, and Wade Marcourt, president of Marcourt And Association Associates.
Now the introduction to the auditors and instructor of election, our independent auditors are also attending this virtual meeting. The representatives of the firm of Ernst And Young, the company's independent registered public accounting firm, who are present at this meeting are Ron Butler and John Gaylord. I would also like to introduce Rob Safletta, a partner with the law firm of Wilson, SUNSini, Goodrich, and Resati, who serves as the company's outside legal counsel. Pursuant to the company's bylaws, I have been appointed to the board of directors by the board of directors To serve as chairman of the meeting, Rob Safletta will serve as secretary of the meeting. We mailed our proxy statement and accompanying form of proxy on or about July 14, 2020, to the holders of record of Microchip Common Stock on June 24, 2020.
After debits of mailing have been received by the company, 252,449,549,517 shares of common stock for outstanding at the close of business on June 24, 2020 and are entitled to vote at this meeting. In accordance with the provisions of Delaware law, the board of directors has appointed Rob Safletta to serve as the Inspector of Election at this meeting, and he subscribed the oath of his office prior to the meeting Raj has informed me that a quorum is present, and I declare the meeting open for business. After the formal meeting has been adjourned, we will provide time for general questions. Only validated stockholders may ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question.
Please note that this meeting is being recorded However, no one attending via the webcast or telephone is permitted to use any audio recording device. The first proposal is to elect 5 directors to serve for the ensuing years. And until their successes are elected and qualified, A nominee for director shall be elected if the votes cast for such nominees' election exceed the votes cast against such nominees election. The second proposal is to ratify the appointment of Ernst And Young LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm of Microchip for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021. The affirmative vote of the holders of a majority of the shares of common stock represented at the required to adopt a proposal.
The 3rd proposal is to hold an advisory non binding vote regarding the compensation of a named executives The affirmative vote of the holders of the majority of the shares of common stock represented as the meeting is required to approve this proposal. If any stockholder would like to make a comment or ask a question regarding any other proposals, Please submit your question or comment through the web portal now. I am watching the web portal for any questions or comments made. It is now 9:06 AM Mountain Standard Time on August 18 2020, and the polls are now open. Any stockholder who hasn't yet 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.
Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or internet and do not want to change their vote. Do not need to take any further action. We will pause for a minute for any voting. K. I don't see any more votes coming in.
Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I now declared the polls for the 2020 annual stockholder meeting closed. The time and date of closing of the polls is 9:0:7 AM Mountain Standard Time, say, August 18 2020. Will the Inspector of Election, please announce the vote?
The preliminary vote report shows that each of the 5 nominees for to the board have been duly elected. The ratification of the appointment in Ernst Young, LLP as the independent registered public accounting firm of Microchip for the year ending March 31, 2021 has been approved, and the compensation of the named executive officers has been approved by advisory vote. Microchip will be reporting the final results in a Form 8 K to be filed with the SEC within 4 business days. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Sanghi.
Thank you, Rob. Just remember that after I close the business portion of this meeting, then there'll be time for questions and answers, and you will send your questions through the web portal. So there's been no further business to come before the meeting. The 2020 annual meeting of stockholders of Microchip Technology Incorporated is now at John. Now we would like to open things up for stockholder questions.
At this point, from the web portal, I have no questions. So if you have any questions, please enter them through the web portal. Okay. We we do have one question. How does the company think about the challenges of diversity and inclusion generally and racial diversity at the board level, early.
Diversity has been shown to enhance decision making and provides protection against the potential for group think and insularity. The question is asked by John White, New York State Common Retirement Fund. So our thoughts, right along with, yours based on that question, we believe in diversity at all levels of the company, not only at the board of directors, but, in the managed in the ranks of the employees at, senior level, middle level, and other levels of management Michael Chip Board has 20% woman today and, 20% minority And any additional board members we add in future, we will, look to further enhance the diversity, both by, you know, across many dimensions, diversity is a very broad topic across having you know, women and minorities and others on the board and at all levels. Microchip also has, a woman as a senior vice president. We have several women who are vice presidents and, directors in the company internal directors.
So we completely believe in the diversity. Monicaing for any other questions? Okay. There are, no other questions on the web portal. So we will, we will close this meeting for today.
Thank you all for attending. Important things.
This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day.