THE FUTURE OF CORPORATE REFORM

Robert A.G. Monks
Co-Founder and Director, GMI Ratings

Robert A.G. Monks co-founded and serves as a director of GMI Ratings.  He was also the founder of Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), now the leading corporate governance consulting firm.  He also founded Lens Governance Advisors and has been a director of 10 publicly traded companies over the last 50 years.  He is a shareholder in and advisor to Trucost, the environmental research company.

President Bill Clinton
Founder of The William J. Clinton Foundation and 42nd President of the United States

William Jefferson Clinton, the first Democratic president in six decades to be elected twice, led the U.S. to the longest economic expansion in American history, including the creation of more than 22 million jobs.

After leaving the White House, President Clinton established the William J. Clinton Foundation with the mission to improve global health, strengthen economies, promote healthier childhoods, and protect the environment by fostering partnerships among governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and private citizens to turn good intentions into measurable results. Today the Foundation has staff and volunteers around the world working to improve lives through several initiatives, including the Clinton Health Access Initiative, which is helping 4.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS access lifesaving drugs.

Bill Lockyer
California State Treasurer

Bill Lockyer was elected on November 7, 2006 as California’s 32nd State Treasurer and re-elected on November 2, 2010.  The Treasurer is the State’s banker.  It’s a bank that processes trillions of dollars in transactions every year.

The Treasurer sells California’s bonds, invests its money and manages its cash.  In addition, the Treasurer manages financing authorities that help provide good-paying jobs, better schools, improved transportation, quality health care, more affordable housing and a cleaner environment. And the Treasurer handles those duties while sitting on the governing boards of the nation’s two largest public pension funds – the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System.

Rich Sattgast
South Dakota State Treasurer

Rich Sattgast serves the people of South Dakota as their current State Treasurer.  Mr. Sattgast was first elected to statewide office in 2002 for the Office of State Auditor in a race against an incumbent State Treasurer.  Mr. Sattgast secured a second term in 2006 in an uncontested race.  In 2010, Mr. Sattgast announced his run for the office of State Treasurer and received 64% of the vote in the General Election.

Kelly Schmidt
North Dakota State Treasurer

Kelly Schmidt was elected North Dakota’s 33rd State Treasurer in November 2004.  She was re-elected in 2008 and 2012. Treasurer Schmidt has been committed to an administration focused on modernization, accuracy and transparency. She believes strongly in ideas of limited and efficient government and has spent her tenure as Treasurer working hard to ensure taxpayer dollars are used in an efficient and effective manner. 

Nell Minow
Editor and Co-Founder, GMI Ratings

Prior to co-founding The Corporate Library (now GMI Ratings), Nell Minow was a Principal of Lens, a $100 million investment firm that took positions in underperforming companies and used shareholder activism to increase their value.  Her other professional experience includes serving as President of Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. and as an attorney at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Justice. 

Darren J. Robbins
Partner, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP

Darren J. Robbins is a founding partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP and a member of its Executive Committee. Mr. Robbins oversees the Firm’s institutional outreach department. Mr. Robbins has served as lead counsel in more than 100 securities-related actions and has obtained recoveries of more than $2 billion for injured shareholders.

Chesley ("Sully") Sullenberger
"Miracle on the Hudson" Pilot and Best-Selling Author

Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, III has been dedicated to the pursuit of safety for his entire adult life. While he is best known for serving as Captain during what has been dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson,” Mr. Sullenberger is an aviation safety expert and accident investigator, serves as a CBS News Aviation and Safety Expert, and is the founder and chief executive officer of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc., a company dedicated to management, safety, performance and reliability consulting.

Lloyd Kurtz
Chief Investment Officer, Nelson Capital Management

Lloyd Kurtz is Chief Investment Officer at Nelson Capital Management, a Palo Alto-based investment firm owned by Wells Fargo. Prior to joining Nelson, Mr. Kurtz spent nine years as a research analyst and director of quantitative research at Harris Bretall Sullivan & Smith in San Francisco.  Prior to that, he was Senior Research Analyst at KLD Research & Analytics in Boston, one of the first firms to specialize in ESG research.  At KLD, he did much of the development work for the Domini Social Index, the first broad‐based ESG benchmark in the U.S.

Michelle Edkins
Managing Director, Global Head of Corporate Governance & Responsible Investment, BlackRock

Michelle Edkins is a Managing Director at BlackRock and Global Head of its Corporate Governance and Responsible Investment team of 20 specialists based in five key regions internationally.  In that role, she is responsible for the team’s engagement and proxy voting activities in relation to the companies in which BlackRock invests on behalf of clients.  She also serves on the firm’s Government Relations Steering Committee. 

Frank Partnoy
Professor of Law and Finance, Founding Director of the Center for Corporate and Securities Law, University of San Diego

Professor Frank Partnoy is the George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance and is the founding director of the Center for Corporate and Securities Law at the University of San Diego.  He is one of the world’s leading experts on the complexities of modern finance and financial market regulation.  He worked as a derivatives structurer at Morgan Stanley and CS First Boston during the mid-1990s and wrote F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street, a best-selling book about his experiences there.

Mac Van Wielingen
Co-Chairman and Director, ARC Financial Corp.

Mac Van Wielingen provides leadership support for ARC Financial with a focus on strategy, corporate development and investment decisionmaking. He was a founder of ARC Financial in 1989 and ARC Resources Ltd. in 1996.

ARC Financial is a leading private equity investment management company focused on the oil and gas sector in Canada with approximately $4 billion of capital under management.

Keith Ambachtsheer
Director, Rotman International Centre for Pension Management
Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

Keith Ambachtsheer is Director of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management (Rotman ICPM), an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Academic Director of the Rotman-ICPM Board Effectiveness Program, and Publisher and Editor of the Rotman International Journal of Pension Management. Rotman ICPM’s primary mission is to foster "better pension design and better pension management" around the world.

His firm, KPA Advisory Services Ltd, has provided strategic advice on governance, finance, and investment matters to governments, industry associations, pension plan sponsors, foundations, and other institutional investors around the world since 1985. He is also a co-founder of CEM Benchmarking Inc., which monitors the organizational performance of 300 pension plans around the world.

John Feigelson
Senior Managing Director, General Counsel & Head of Corporate Governance, TIAA-CREF

John Feigelson is currently a Senior Managing Director, General Counsel and Head of Corporate Governance with TIAA-CREF, a national financial services group of companies and the leading provider of retirement saving products and services in the academic, medical, cultural and research fields. Mr. Feigelson is currently a board member of the International Corporate Governance Network, the Foreign Policy Association, and Reval, a provider of software solutions for Enterprise Treasury and Risk Management.

Kimberly Gladman, CFA, Ph.D.
Director of Research and Risk Analytics, GMI Ratings

Kimberly Gladman oversees GMI Ratings' U.S. research practice and leads a group of analysts responsible for governance ratings.  Before joining GMI Ratings predecessor The Corporate Library in 2008, she managed a team of associates researching global corporations at Domini Social Investments, a leading socially responsible investment fund manager.  Dr. Gladman also served as Lead SRI Analyst for Domini's European equity fund, and spent several years participating in the firm's shareholder advocacy on social, environmental, and governance issues.  Before joining Domini in 2001, Dr. Gladman had an academic career, focused on interdisciplinary research and teaching.  She earned a B.A. from Yale University in 1990, and a Ph.D. from New York University in 2001.  Dr. Gladman also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Patrick W. Daniels
Partner, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP

Patrick W. Daniels is a founding partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, a member of the Firm’s Management Committee, and the global director of business development. He counsels private and state government pension funds, central banks and fund managers in the United States and internationally.  Mr. Daniels is an advisor to political and financial leaders throughout the world. He counsels private and state government pension funds and fund managers in the United States, Australia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and other countries within the European Union on issues related to corporate fraud in the United States securities markets and "best practices" in the corporate governance of publicly traded companies. Mr. Daniels has represented dozens of institutional investors in some of the largest and most significant shareholder actions in the United States, including UBS, Enron, WorldCom, AOL Time Warner and BP, to name just a few.

James Carville
Political Commentator and Consultant, Media Personality

James "The Ragin' Cajun" Carville is America's best-known political consultant. His long list of electoral successes evidences a knack for steering overlooked campaigns to unexpected landslide victories and for re-making political underdogs into upset winners.

His winning streak began in 1986, when he managed the gubernatorial victory of Robert Casey in Pennsylvania. In 1987, Mr. Carville helped guide Wallace Wilkinson to the governor's seat in Kentucky. Mr. Carville continued his winning streak with wins in New Jersey with Frank Lautenberg elected to the U.S. Senate. He next managed the successful 1990 gubernatorial campaign of Georgia's Lieutenant Governor Zell Miller, including a tough primary win over Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, and in 1991, Mr. Carville—who had already become prominent in political circles—drew national attention when he led Senator Harris Wofford from 40 points behind in the polls to an upset landslide victory over former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. But his most prominent victory was in 1992, when he helped William Jefferson Clinton win the Presidency.

Paul J. Geller
Partner, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP

In addition to maintaining a full litigation caseload, Paul J. Geller manages the Firm’s Boca Raton, Florida office. After spending several years representing blue chip companies in class action lawsuits at one of the largest corporate defense firms in the world, Mr. Geller became a founding partner and head of the Boca Raton office of a national class action boutique firm, Geller Rudman, PLLC. In July 2004, through a merger of the firms, Mr. Geller opened the Boca Raton, Florida office of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP.