Speaker Bios: 

• Maryanne Hancock: CEO of Y Analytics, the arm of TPG responsible for the impact and ESG mandates of the firm. Previously, Hancock spent ~20 years at McKinsey and Company, where she was a senior partner.
• Melody Meyer: Director, BP, AbbVie, and National Oilwell Varco; President, Melody Meyer Energy LLC and Women with Energy LLC
• Melissa Paschall: Director, Governance, Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, Ceres

Speaker Bios: 

• Maryanne Hancock: CEO of Y Analytics, the arm of TPG responsible for the impact and ESG mandates of the firm. Previously, Hancock spent ~20 years at McKinsey and Company, where she was a senior partner.
• Melody Meyer: Director, BP, AbbVie, and National Oilwell Varco; President, Melody Meyer Energy LLC and Women with Energy LLC
• Melissa Paschall: Director, Governance, Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, Ceres

FEATURED GUESTS

Ram Charan

Ram Charan is a world-renowned business consultant, author, and speaker who has spent the past 40 years working with many top companies, CEOs, and boards. Charan was first introduced to business while working in the family shoe shop in a small town in northern India, where he was raised. He served on the faculties of Harvard Business School and Northwestern University before pursuing consulting full-time. Charan has won several awards, including the Bell Ringer award at GE’s Crotonville Institute and best teacher award at Northwestern. He was among BusinessWeek‘s top ten resources for in-house executive development programs. Charan has authored more than 30 books since 1998 that have sold over four million copies in more than a dozen languages. He has also written for Harvard Business Review, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Time, Chief Executive, and USA Today. Charan is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources

Judy Samuelson

Judy Samuelson is founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program and author of Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World (2021). Signature programs under Samuelson’s leadership include a 10-year campaign to disrupt Milton Friedman’s narrative about corporate purpose, the Aspen Principles of Long-Term Value Creation, and a partnership with Korn Ferry to rethink executive pay. She previously worked in legislative affairs in California and banking in New York’s garment center and ran the Ford Foundation’s office of program-related investments. Samuelson blogs for Quartz at Work. She is a Bellagio Fellow and a director of the Financial Health Network.

Stilpon Nestor

Stilpon Nestor is the executive chair of Morrow Sodali EMEA. He is also the executive chair and founder of Nestor Advisors, a company that Morrow Sodali acquired in early 2021. In this latter role, he has advised the boards of some of the largest companies and financial institutions in the European Union and emerging markets in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East across a variety of sectors. Until 2002, Stilpon was the head of the Corporate Affairs Division at the OECD, leading the team which produced the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance in 1999. Stilpon is a nonexecutive director of the Arabian Construction Co., one of the largest contractors in the Gulf. He is currently a member of the UK Institute of Directors (IoD) Advisory Board on Corporate Governance and cochairs its working group on governance and technology. He is a regular public speaker on governance.

Mike Lubrano

Mike Lubrano is managing director of Valoris: Stewardship Catalysts, and an adjunct professor of Sustainable Finance and Impact Investment at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. Lubrano also teaches the International Corporate Governance Network’s signature “Governance, Stewardship, and Sustainability” course and served as ICGN’s Education Programme advisor. Lubrano was a cofounder and managing director, Corporate Governance and Sustainability, at Cartica Management LLC. Earlier, Lubrano worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group; served as advisor to the Ministry of Finance of Chile for the development of its corporate governance reforms; and was one of the group of experts that designed Brazil’s Novo Mercado. Lubrano is a cofounder of the Latin America Corporate Governance Roundtable. He is currently a director of FIBRA ECO. He is the coauthor of Governance, Stewardship and Sustainability (2021).

SHOW NOTES

mpact of Technology on the Future of Corporate Governance

Ram Charan: Three factors every board must consider

1. Need to have a view of the outside world that is not purely driven by management. Need independent  view of the outside
2. Technology: must focus is critical because a company cannot be everything to everyone. Must have the right CEO a
3. Capital Allocation: balance between short term and long term

• Technology will be a critical driver of enabling a board to understand these three critical areas
• Effective agenda setting to improve the effective time of board meetings

Stilpon: Royal Post upgraded many of its digital systems. How can boards fully kick the tires on a reporting system that is fully algorithmic? Boards must be more generalist and with access to more information from the outside.

• Technology will change employee participation in the boardroom. 

Judy Samuelson: Era of hyper transparency. Employees have good sightlines into business decision making and ability to follow the money in a way never previously possible. Authentic leadership is keeping your promises and outsiders and employees are now able to apply a level of scrutiny never previously possible with new technology. 

• Technology empowers employees to build consensus and communicate with each other in ways previously not available to other generations

Judy Samuelson: Cultural barrier to employees represented on board. Employees have same long-term interest in the companies success. In the knowledge economy ignore them at your own peril. Employees are the centerpiece of the success of the business. 

How will the pandemic impact corporate governance moving forward:

Ram Charan: Cycle time is reducing, communicating with competitors. 6 boards meetings for boards usually sometimes 4

Judy Samuelson: the pandemic ushered in a new era of private, public partnership 

• Total reshaping of executive compensation. Move away from stock in order to incentivize long-term interests and success. 
• “Cannot have a successful business in a failed society”

Stilpon: Impacts the new “distributed board” era and will impact the agendas and consolidation of the agendas to allow for more deep diving into the issues during meetings, but less consequential stuff can be distributed to be completed outside of meetings. 

What knowledge and skills will future board members need?

Stilpon: More well-rounded generalists rather than direct specialists on specific topics. 

Ram Charan: Many board members still don’t have the basic finance knowledge (balance sheets)

Judy Samuelson: Need more women on boards and need more diversity 

Final Statements

Ram Charan: Broaden focus but cannot focus solely on stakeholders, have the right CEO, focus the agenda every year, employees need to be rewarded in same way as top management to decrease inequality

Stilpon Nestor: Companies will become much more social animals. Boards will be freed from the short-termism and be more strategic. Variable architecture in their composition, more distributed boards and distributed duties

• Challenge: going to new social companies is lacking a complete and fulsome accountability structure to replace the shareholder accountability model

Judy Samuelson: Shareholder accountability is not the solution. 

How will the culture of boards evolve? Status quo will not get us where we want to go. More diversity and supporting the executive to do some difficult and “unpopular” things.

FEATURED GUESTS

Ram Charan

Ram Charan is a world-renowned business consultant, author, and speaker who has spent the past 40 years working with many top companies, CEOs, and boards. Charan was first introduced to business while working in the family shoe shop in a small town in northern India, where he was raised. He served on the faculties of Harvard Business School and Northwestern University before pursuing consulting full-time. Charan has won several awards, including the Bell Ringer award at GE’s Crotonville Institute and best teacher award at Northwestern. He was among BusinessWeek‘s top ten resources for in-house executive development programs. Charan has authored more than 30 books since 1998 that have sold over four million copies in more than a dozen languages. He has also written for Harvard Business Review, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Time, Chief Executive, and USA Today. Charan is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources

Judy Samuelson

Judy Samuelson is founder and executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program and author of Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World (2021). Signature programs under Samuelson’s leadership include a 10-year campaign to disrupt Milton Friedman’s narrative about corporate purpose, the Aspen Principles of Long-Term Value Creation, and a partnership with Korn Ferry to rethink executive pay. She previously worked in legislative affairs in California and banking in New York’s garment center and ran the Ford Foundation’s office of program-related investments. Samuelson blogs for Quartz at Work. She is a Bellagio Fellow and a director of the Financial Health Network.

Stilpon Nestor

Stilpon Nestor is the executive chair of Morrow Sodali EMEA. He is also the executive chair and founder of Nestor Advisors, a company that Morrow Sodali acquired in early 2021. In this latter role, he has advised the boards of some of the largest companies and financial institutions in the European Union and emerging markets in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East across a variety of sectors. Until 2002, Stilpon was the head of the Corporate Affairs Division at the OECD, leading the team which produced the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance in 1999. Stilpon is a nonexecutive director of the Arabian Construction Co., one of the largest contractors in the Gulf. He is currently a member of the UK Institute of Directors (IoD) Advisory Board on Corporate Governance and cochairs its working group on governance and technology. He is a regular public speaker on governance.

Mike Lubrano

Mike Lubrano is managing director of Valoris: Stewardship Catalysts, and an adjunct professor of Sustainable Finance and Impact Investment at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. Lubrano also teaches the International Corporate Governance Network’s signature “Governance, Stewardship, and Sustainability” course and served as ICGN’s Education Programme advisor. Lubrano was a cofounder and managing director, Corporate Governance and Sustainability, at Cartica Management LLC. Earlier, Lubrano worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group; served as advisor to the Ministry of Finance of Chile for the development of its corporate governance reforms; and was one of the group of experts that designed Brazil’s Novo Mercado. Lubrano is a cofounder of the Latin America Corporate Governance Roundtable. He is currently a director of FIBRA ECO. He is the coauthor of Governance, Stewardship and Sustainability (2021).

SHOW NOTES

Megatrends shaping corporate governance

Judy Samuelson: Employees are changing the power structure

• Much better window into corporate accountability than investors or management, or regulators

Stilpon: Control of corporations is changing. Concentration of control with multiple voting rights, SPACs.2.) Much more voice outside of the company. Corporations are becoming much more social animals than economic animals (corporations are political actors). 3.) Ebb and flow of regulation post 2008

Ram Charan: Public boards now have a new boss and the Engine #1 example is proof of that. The new boss is the long-term, permanent investor (passive, BlackRock, Vanguard, Atavists). Drivers: Sustainability and the new boss is 24/7

What is the effect of the debate of the purpose of the corporation

Stilpon: Not quite sure that in spite of the UK CorpGov code and BRT announcement, not sure we have actually seen companies putting purpose into action, and it remains to be seen how companies will “hardwire” purpose into strategy, actions, and compensation incentives.

• Could simply be a way of dodging accountability to shareholders by diluting the accountability across multiple stakeholder constituencies

Ram Charan: Purpose goes back to Harvard Business school since the 1930s. India culturally practices giving 10% of profit to charity. Purpose has been practiced for decades and it merely means that the current efforts of social engagement are not enough. 

Judy Samuelson: Stakeholder is a bad term, but we need business to be at the table. The law around corporate purpose is not holding us back, but it is the system and infrastructure that keeps the shareholders at the top and front and center to business objectives. Employees are better at accountability than shareholders, and can better account for companies aligned to the promises and expectations set out in BRT. Strong focus on what the company is doing and producing tied to that purpose and what the effects it is having in doing and producing those things on the community it operates in? Derive purpose from this

• 17:00: Moment of huge change with directors retiring in the new normal. We need new innovation at the level of governance. CEO must assess the entire ecosystem of the business, external and internal. Rethink committee structure, employees are not going to be quiet, companies are returning 90% of profits to shareholders in buybacks and dividends
• Imminent and measurable: composition and diversity are improving but not there yet. 2.) increasing compensation between the top and the bottom, front line workers is untenable
• Talking about how the business model works and what it is designed to do and then what is the impact in the real world of that model

Stilpon: Skeptical, startup model with purpose is potentially a way towards instituting the purpose into the organization

Large Companies – Is there a dichotomy between the bosses and players a large company has versus mid and small cap that are not high-profile (not as big targets for activists and passive investors)

Judy Samuelson: Not sure. Capital is not scarce and many companies simply go public as a means of providing an early escape hatch for their early investors, but they do not actually need capital. 

• Large and small is not the right distinction. Focusing on culture and impact. Inequality needs to bring everyone to the table
• Crisis is driving change. Larger companies as they are targeted as they provide a means of bringing the entire vendor, supply chain, and ecosystem to the table to drive change. Small is much more dynamic so it will be interesting to see how they impact this space

Stilpon: Large companies are just engaged in a political communications exercise. 

FEATURED GUESTS

David Rock

Dr. David Rock is the Co-founder and CEO of the NeuroLeadership Institute (NLI). The Institute is a 23-year-old cognitive science consultancy that has advised over 50% of the Fortune 100. With operations in 24 countries, the Institute brings neuroscientists and leadership experts together to make organizations better for humans through science. Rock has authored four successful books including Your Brain at Work, a business best-seller. He has written for and been quoted in Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider,CNBC,  Forbes, Fortune, Inc., USA Today,BBC, The Boston Globe, and more. He holds a professional doctorate in the Neuroscience of Leadership from Middlesex University in the UK.

RELATED RESOURCES

• David Rock, Heidi Grant, and Jacqui Grey, "Diverse Teams Feel Less Comfortable — and That’s Why They Perform Better," Harvard Business Review.
• Mark A. Thornton and Jason P. Mitchell, Theories of Person Perception Predict Patterns of Neural Activity During Mentalizing

FEATURED GUESTS

Ruth V. Aguilera

Ruth V. Aguilera (Harvard University, Ph.D.) is the Darla and Frederick Brodsky Trustee Professor in Global Business and Distinguished Professor, International Business and Strategy at Northeastern University’s D'Amore-McKim School of Business. She is also a Visiting Professor at ESADE Business School in Spain. Her research interests lie at the intersection of strategic organization and global strategy, specializing in international corporate governance and corporate social responsibility/sustainability. She has written close to a hundred academic and professional articles on these research topics. She is an Associate Editor at the Academy of Management Review and Consulting Editor at the Journal of International Business Studies. She serves on the board of directors of the Strategic Management Society and the International Corporate Governance Society and is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business and the Strategic Management Society. Aguilera teaches executives and advises companies on issues related to corporate governance across a variety of countries (Spain, U.K., Mexico, Peru, etc.) and organizations on areas that range from the development of effective corporate governance of family-owned businesses to improving ESG performance and D&I practices.

Venkat Kuppuswamy

Venkat Kuppuswamy is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. His research investigates the influence of race and gender in entrepreneurship and other economic domains, including interventions to mitigate racial and gender biases in these contexts. In 2020, he was the inaugural recipient of the prestigious Bradford-Osborne Research Award from the University of Washington, the first national award to recognize research published in peer-reviewed journals that contributes to advancing the growth of businesses owned by people of color.  He was also the recipient of the best paper award from the Journal of Business Venturing in 2019 for his work on racial bias on crowdfunding platforms. His research has been covered by numerous publications including The Atlantic, Forbes, NPR, and the Harvard Business Review. He is affiliated with the Center for Emerging Markets at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business, which supports his research on corporate governance in emerging markets. Prior to Northeastern University, Kuppuswamy served on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he received his Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from Harvard Business School.

RELATED RESOURCED

• Resources for India’s COVID-19 Crisis, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
• Aguilera, Ruth V., Venkat Kuppuswamy, Rahul Anand, “What Happened When India Mandated Gender Diversity on Boards ,” Harvard Business Review(February 05, 2021).

We’ve got some great news. We’ll be back with all-new episodes of the Future Fluency podcast beginning May 6. Be sure to listen in and subscribe!

FEATURED GUESTS

Shai Akabas

Shai Akabas is BPC’s director of economic policy. He has conducted research on a variety of economic policy issues, including the federal budget, retirement security, and the financing of higher education. Akabas joined BPC in 2010 and staffed the Domenici-Rivlin Debt Reduction Task Force that year. He also assisted Jerome H. Powell, now Chairman of the Federal Reserve, in his work on the federal debt limit. For the past several years, Akabas has steered BPC’s Commission on Retirement Security and Personal Savings, co-chaired by former Senator Kent Conrad and the Honorable James B. Lockhart III.

Akabas has been interviewed by publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, and has published op-eds in The Hill and The Christian Science Monitor. He has been featured as an expert guest several times on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.

Prior to joining BPC, Akabas worked as a satellite office director on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 campaign for reelection. Born and raised in New York City, he received his B.A. in economics and history from Cornell University and an M.S. in applied economics from Georgetown University.

Jennifer Glass

Jennifer Glass is the Centennial Commission Professor of Liberal Arts in the Department of Sociology and the Population Research Center of the University of Texas, Austin.  She has published over 60 articles and books on work and family issues, gender stratification in the labor force, mother’s employment and mental health, and religious conservatism and women’s economic attainment, with funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  She received the Jessie Bernard Award  in 2020 from the American Sociological Association, the Harriet Presser Award in 2019 from the Population Association of America, the 2016 Best Publication Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association, the Reuben Hill Award from the National Council on Family Relations in 1986, and has thrice been nominated for the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research. Her work has appeared in the Monthly Labor Review, American Sociological Review, Demography, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and Social Forces, among others. She is currently the Executive Director of the Council on Contemporary Families, and past Chair of the Social Sciences and Population (B) Study Section at the National Institutes of Health. 

Ira Kalish

Dr. Kalish is the Chief Global Economist of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. He is a specialist in global economic issues as well as the effects of economic, demographic, and social trends on the global business environment. He advises Deloitte clients as well as Deloitte’s leadership on economic issues and their impact on business strategy. In addition, he has given numerous presentations to corporations and trade organizations on topics related to the global economy. He is widely traveled and has given presentations in 47 countries on six continents. He has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and The Financial Times. Dr. Kalish holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Vassar College and a PhD in international economics from Johns Hopkins University.

Nate Wong

Nate Wong leads the day-to-day operations of the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovationat Georgetown University that seeks to scout, surface, and scale promising ecosystem-centered solutions in the impact space. The Center works directly with leading practitioners and students around its two main portfolios centered around making finance more equitable and improving how governments use the tools of data and digital to deliver better services to its residents. Prior to coming to the Center in 2018, Nate helped launch and direct two social impact units at Deloitte Consulting and more recently at Boston Consulting Group’s non-profit, the Centre for Public Impact in the US. He has worked in over 10 different countries, helping partners maximize their social impact. Nate has worked on issues around economic development/ mobility and inclusive entrepreneurship including stints at Obama Foundation, Acumen, Endeavor, and TechnoServe. Nate has an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. When not in a pandemic, you can find him exploring the DC food scene, getting lost in a travel book, throwing ceramics, or improving his boxing technique.

RELATED RESOURCES

• “Taking Stock of the Market: A Conversation With Kim Parker,” Future Fluency podcast (NACD, Nov. 19, 2020).
• “Where the Money Meets the Road: A Conversation With Shai Akabas,” Future Fluency podcast (NACD, Jul 23, 2020).
• “Emerging Workforce Trends: A Conversation With Dr. Jennifer Glass,” Future Fluency podcast (NACD, Aug. 06, 2020).
• "Flattening the Inequity Curve: A Conversation with Nate Wong," Future Fluency podcast (NACD, Sept. 10, 2020).

FEATURED GUESTS

Kim Parker

Kim Parker is director of social trends research at Pew Research Center. She oversees research on emerging social and demographic trends, manages major survey projects, and writes and edits reports. Parker was previously the associate director of social and demographic trends research and the research director for the Center’s political unit. Prior to joining Pew Research Center, she worked as a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute. She holds a master’s degree in American government from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College. Parker is an author of studies on a variety of topics including gender and work, the changing American family, generational change, higher education, the Great Recession, the middle class, aging, military veterans and Asian Americans. Parker frequently discusses social and demographic trends with journalists and has been interviewed by broadcast outlets such as NPR, NBC, MSNBC and C-SPAN.

RELATED RESOURCES

• Igielnik, Ruth, “Few in U.S. owned stocks outside of 401(k)s in 2019, fewer said market had a big impact on their view of economy.” Pew Research Center, September 25, 2020.
• Menasce Horowitz, Juliana, Ruth Igielnik, and Rakesh Kichhar, “Most Americans Say There Is Too Much Economic Inequality in the U.S., but Fewer Than Half Call It a Top Priority.” Pew Research Center, January 9, 2020. 
• Parker, Kim and Richard Fry, “More than half of U.S. households have some investment in the stock market.” Pew Research Center, March 25, 2020.
• Schaeffer, Katherine, “6 facts about economic inequality in the U.S.” Pew Research Center, Frbruary 7, 2020. 

FEATURED GUESTS

Leah Rozin

Leah Rozin joined the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) in 2019 as the senior manager of Research. Prior to joining NACD, she was Vice President at ISS Corporate Solutions (ICS) where she served as the principal advisor for the Sustainability Suite working with corporate clients understand the ESG landscape and improve disclosure practices. She joined ICS in 2015 from the Corporate Executive Board where she specialized in investor perception studies and investor messaging.

RELATED RESOURCES

Rozin, Leah. "Understanding the Board’s Role in ESG," NACD BoardTalk blog (Sept. 22, 2020).

NACD. Strategic Oversight of ESG: A Board Primer (Sept. 22, 2020; NACD member exclusive).

Cyrus Taraporevala letter, State Street Global Advisors (Jan. 28, 2020).

NACD ESG Oversight Resource Center