Mr. Armacost currently serves as the Lead Director of Chevron and Chairman of the Board of Directors of SRI International, formerly Stanford Research Institute, an independent technology development and consulting organization. He was President, Director and Chief Executive Officer of BankAmerica Corporation from 1981 until 1986. He was a Managing Director of Weiss, Peck & Greer LLC from 1990 until 1998 and Managing Director of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets from 1987 until 1990. Mr. Armacost also serves as a director of Del Monte, Exponent, Inc., Callaway Golf Company and Franklin Resources, Inc.

Maryellen F. Andersen is Vice President of corporate and institutional relations for Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., formerly Automatic Data Processing, Investor Communication Services, where she advises on corporate governance issues. Maryellen focuses on enhancing relationships and shareowner communication programs between Broadridge and constituents while addressing industry related issues.

Prior to joining Broadridge, Maryellen established and became president of MEA Associates, a consulting firm that provided advisory services to corporations and their boards of directors regarding corporate governance issues as well as relationships with their institutional investors. Previously, Maryellen was a principal investment officer and director of investor and corporate relations for the State of Connecticut, Office of the Treasurer.

Presently, Maryellen is a member of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals and its’ Corporate Practices Committee; the Council of Institutional Investors and served as Treasurer; the National Investor Relations Institute; the National Association of Corporate Directors; and the International Corporate Governance Network. Maryellen was a member of the Board of Directors of the Investor Responsibility Research Center and served as Chair. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Easter Seals Foundation and served as Chair and a corporator of Hartford Hospital and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. Maryellen is a frequent speaker on shareholder communication issues.

Maryellen received her B.A. in mathematics from Elms College and her M.A. in public policy from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Alisa J. Baker is a partner in Levine & Baker LLP, a San Francisco law firm specializing in employment law and executive compensation.  For more than twenty years,  Ms. Baker has advised clients on executive and equity compensation matters, including negotiating employment-related agreements, representing founders and key executives in M&A transactions, and providing expert services for equity-related litigation. Along with her many other articles and publications, she is the author of The Stock Options Book, CEPI's core text, and co-author of the NCEO treatise, The Law of Equity Compensation. Speaking engagements over the last two decades have included numerous featured appearances before national industry groups, including NASPP, NCEO and SHRM. Alisa was a founding member of the CEPI Board of Advisors and she serves on the MyStockOptions Board of Advisors, the NCEO Stock Option Advisory Board, and the editorial board of the Journal of Employee Ownership Law and Finance.

Alisa received her B.A. and M.A. in English with honors, and her M.S. in higher education with distinction from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She earned her J.D. with honors from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., where she was an associate editor of the Georgetown Law Journal.  She has been a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School and an adjunct lecturer in Executive Compensation at Golden Gate University. 

Rachel Beck is the national business columnist for The Associated Press, writing the twice-weekly "All Business" column that encompasses major business topics of the day including trends in economics, accounting and corporate governance.

Beck, who has spent her entire journalism career at the AP, is a a graduate of Lehigh University and holds a master's degree in journalism as well as an MBA from Columbia University. She was awarded the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Business and Economics Journalism at Columbia for the 2000-2001 academic year. Her column-writing won Beck the Excellence in Financial Journalism Award from the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants in 2004 and 2006. She also is a three-time winner of a Front Page Award by the Newswomen's Club of New York, for her columns as well as her coverage of retailing and accounting issues, and was named one of the top financial journalists under age 30 in 1999 by the business-media trade publication TJFR. In addition, she was part of the team of AP reporters awarded the Society of American Business Editors and Reporters Best in Business Award for their spot coverage of the stock market collapse and rebound in 1997.

Alan Beller recently rejoined Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton as a Partner in its New York City office. From 2002 until early 2006, Alan served as Director of the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance and Senior Advisor to the SEC Chairman, and is a distinguished and well-recognized expert on corporate and securities laws.

Formerly, he was at the international law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, where he became a partner in 1984. Mr. Beller has worked in three of Cleary Gottlieb's worldwide offices - New York, Paris and Tokyo - and his practice has focused on the entire spectrum of corporate, securities and derivatives issues, both domestic and international. Mr. Beller was co-chair of the International Subcommittee of the American Bar Association's Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities and has published extensively, including co-authoring a treatise entitled U.S. Regulation of the International Securities and Derivatives Markets (Sixth Edition, 2001).

Mr. Beller has a J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and graduated from Yale College in 1971.

Danielle specializes in assisting public companies with their securities regulation, compliance and reporting needs, and in assisting both privately held and public companies and individual executives with stock-based executive compensation arrangements. Danielle joined Perkins Coie in 1996 and serves as Editor for the firm's Corporate Finance Update publications and as president of the Portland, Oregon NASPP chapter. She is a regular speaker on equity compensation and securities regulation topics.

Danielle co-authored the Executive Compensation Disclosure Handbook: A Practical Guide to the SEC's New Rules (West Legalworks/RR Donnelley) and also regularly authors articles on securities and compensation topics for publication in a number of journals specializing in securities and executive compensation issues, such as Insights: The Corporate & Securities Law Advisor and BNA's Benefits Practice Center, Executive Compensation Library. Danielle graduated from Wellesley College and from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.

Mark Borges is a principal for Compensia, after having recently left Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Mark provides assistance and advice to consultants and clients regarding legislative, regulatory, and judicial developments that affect corporate benefits, compensation and other human resource consulting programs.

Previously, Mr. Borges was a Special Counsel in the Office of Rulemaking, Division of Corporation Finance with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Before that, he was General Counsel for ShareData, Inc., the leading provider of software for employee stock plan administration, prior to its acquisition by E*TRADE Group, Inc. in 1998. Mr. Borges practiced law with the firms of Ware & Friedenrich (now Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich) from 1987 to 1992 and Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro from 1982 to 1987, specializing in equity compensation and insider trading matters as well as venture capital finance.

From 1981 to 1982, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Marion T. Bennett of the United States Court of Claims in Washington, D.C.A California native, Mr. Borges graduated from Humboldt State University in 1976. He received his J.D. from Santa Clara University in 1979 and an L.L.M. in Taxation from New York University in 1981. He is a member of the American Bar Association.

Jesse Brill is recognized as one of the country's leading authorities on insiders' transactions and compensation planning for executives. Mr. Brill is the Publisher-Editor of the nationally acclaimed newsletters The Corporate Counsel and The Corporate Executive, which he has been publishing for over 30 years. His publishing company, Executive Press, also publishes Peter Romeo and Alan Dye's Section 16 Treatise and Reporting Guide, The Section 16 Forms and Filings Handbook, Comprehensive Section 16 Deskbook and Section 16 Updates—and the highly acclaimed websites, Section16.net, TheCorporateCounsel.net, DealLawyers.com and CompensationStandards.com.

Mr. Brill is also Securities Counsel for Morgan Stanley and Chair of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. He received his law degree from Yale Law School.

Matthew Connor is the International & Regulatory Product Manager for Smith Barney Global Stock Plan Services (GSPS). His responsibility is to ensure that GSPS has a truly global perspective for all initiatives. Matt has been with GSPS for the past 6 years. Prior to his product management role, Matt managed the GSPS Implementation Team. In this role, Matt's team handled all new client implementations across all platforms for Stock Options, Restricted Stock and Stock Purchase. In addition, Matt played a major role in several high profile client projects. Part of Matt's enthusiasm for his International role is displayed by his attendance at Columbia University as he pursues a degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Alexander Cwirko-Godycki is a Senior Analyst with Equilar, a compensation research firm located in San Mateo, Calif. He leads the firm’s Publications & Media Relations team, serving as Equilar’s primary spokesperson for all media inquires. Alexander is the editor of Equilar’s monthly newsletter which highlights emerging trends in executive and director compensation and is read by over 5,000 compensation professionals. In addition, he has authored a number of data-driven reports on trends impacting compensation professionals, including employee stock purchase plans, executive perquisites and benefits and executive and director ownership guidelines.

Alexander is in daily contact with leading journalists and media professionals, working closely with them to provide timely and objective analyses and commentary for their stories. Equilar's research has been prominently featured in many leading business publications, including Business Week, Fortune, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Alexander is a graduate of Cornell University where he earned bachelor’s degrees in government and history.

Wendy Davis is a senior associate in the Compensation & Benefits group and a member of the Cooley Godward Kronish Business department in the Hanover office.

Ms. Davis specializes in equity and executive compensation. She has extensive experience in establishing and maintaining equity compensation plans, cash bonus plans, deferred compensation arrangements, and change of control agreements. Ms. Davis regularly negotiates executive severance, retention and employment agreements on behalf of executives and employers at all stages of the corporate lifecycle. Ms. Davis frequently assists with the compensation, benefits and executive-related issues arising in mergers and acquisitions. Her practice addresses not only the practical design considerations of compensation programs but also the often complicated intersection of tax, employment, corporate and securities laws as well as the shareholder relations issues that arise in connection with compensation matters.

Prior to joining Cooley, Ms. Davis worked for three years as an associate in the Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits group at Simpson Thacher and Bartlett LLP, specializing in compensation, benefits and executive-related issues arising in mergers and acquisitions. Before joining Simpson Thacher, Ms. Davis started her career as an associate in the Compensation & Benefits group at Venture Law Group, specializing in employment, equity compensation and executive-related issues of public and private companies.

Ms. Davis received a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1999 where she served as the Editor of Interdisciplinary Programs of the Law School Roundtable. She graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Davis is a member of the American Bar Association and the State Bar of California. Ms. Davis is a frequent speaker on compensation matters for the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, most recently presenting on the treatment of perquisites under the new SEC disclosure rules as well as on major trends in compensation including share ownership requirements, the application of Section 409A to equity awards and traps for the unwary in the use of performance-based and deferred compensation. Ms. Davis has also spoken on the treatment of compensation and benefits matters in mergers and acquisitions for ALI-ABA.

Don Delves, as President and Founder of The Delves Group, provides expertise in measuring performance, designing innovative pay and incentive systems, and helping companies get what they pay for with their compensation dollars. He works with boards, compensation committees, senior executives, and sales forces to improve their effectiveness and reassess the way they are organized, directed, and rewarded.

In his book, Stock Options & the New Rules of Corporate Accountability (McGraw Hill, August 2003), he pinpoints the problems of the current system and outlines steps that will dramatically improve the weak link between executive pay and performance. Prior to founding The Delves Group, he started and managed the Chicago office of iQuantic, was a Senior Consultant at Sibson and Co., an executive compensation consultant with Towers Perrin, served as a manager in personal financial planning and taxation with Arthur Anderson & Co., and served as a financial consultant to middle market companies for Harris Bank.

Mr. Delves is a CPA, holds an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago, and earned a BA, summa cum laude, in economics from DePauw University. He serves on the Chicago Compensation Association board, and is involved in a variety of civic and community organizations.

Howard B. Dicker has a diverse corporate practice, including mergers & acquisitions, financings, securities offerings, venture capital investments and restructurings. He also advises numerous companies regarding securities law issues, disclosure and compliance matters as well as on executive compensation and corporate governance.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Dicker was an auditor and tax consultant at Price Waterhouse in New York. There, he focused on broker-dealers in securities and commodities. He is licensed as a certified public accountant.

Mr. Dicker's recent publications include "Executive Compensation and Corporate Governance," which is Chapter 3 in A Practical Guide to SEC Proxy and Compensation Rules, 3rd Edition, 2005 Supplement (with Robert Todd Lang and Spencer G. Smul), published by Aspen.

He is also active in various bar associations and committees and speaks and writes on a variety of topics in corporate and securities law.

Brink Dickerson is a partner with the law firm of Troutman Sanders LLP in Atlanta, Georgia. The primary focuses of his practice are securities law and mergers and acquisitions.

Brink also advises a number of other publicly traded companies on a more occasional basis and regularly advises e-commerce and other start-ups with respect to venture capital and other financing issues. He also acts as special counsel to boards of directors and special committees with respect to governance, disclosure and investigatory matters. In the mergers and acquisitions area, Brink has been responsible for over one hundred transactions including five tender offers and acquisitions in over twenty different industries.

Brink is a regular speaker on securities and transactional matters. He formerly was the Chairperson of the Corporation and Business Law Committee of the Chicago Bar Association and for several years was the Chairman of the Mergers and Acquisitions Committee. He also is a member of the Securities Law Committee of the Chicago Bar Association and of the Georgia Bar and American Bar Associations.

Brink earned his BBA, MBA and JD, with honors, from Emory University, and is licensed to practice law in Illinois and Georgia

David Drake works with clients to help them obtain favorable shareholder vote results on proxy contests, mergers & acquisitions, shareholder proposals, compensation plans and other corporate governance matters.

David is a frequent speaker and writer on corporate governance and compensation issues. His recent articles include “Seeking Shareholder Approval of Option Plans Under the New NYSE/NASDAQ Listing Standards” and “Are You Ready for the Ratings Game: The Corporate Governance Ratings Game.” Prior to joining Georgeson in 1997, David served as Vice President and Director of US Research and Senior Analyst for Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS).

David earned a BA in Political Science from George Washington University and an MBA in Finance from The American University in Washington, DC.

Paula Dubberly is Associate Director (Legal) of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Ms. Dubberly oversees various aspects of the Division’s interpretative, rulemaking and enforcement liaison functions. Ms. Dubberly was Chief Counsel of the Division from 2000 to 2003. Prior to becoming Chief Counsel, Ms. Dubberly was an Assistant Director. Registrants in her office included internet companies, investment banks, real estate investment trusts and asset-backed issuers.

Among some of the major projects under Ms. Dubberly’s leadership have been the executive compensation rule revisions, the promulgation of Regulation AB and the 2002 requirement pursuant to Section 21(a) that the CEO and CFOs of the largest companies certify to the accuracy of their public reports. Prior to joining the Commission in 1992, Ms. Dubberly was an associate at Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue.

Alan is Editor of Section16.net and a Partner with Hogan & Hartson L.L.P., a Washington, D.C. law firm, where he specializes in securities matters. Before joining Hogan & Hartson, Alan spent two years at the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance and served for two years as Special Counsel to the SEC Chairman. Prior to that, Alan served as a law clerk for the Honorable Ellsworth A. Van Graafeiland of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Alan is an active member of the American Bar Association, serving as Chairman of the Securities, Commodities and Exchanges Committee of its Administrative Law Section and as a member of the Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities of its Business Law Section.

He has written extensively on various issues under the federal securities laws, including his co-authorship of the Section 16 Treatise and Reporting Guide (Executive Press 1994), the Section 16 Forms and Filings Handbook (Executive Press 2000), and the Comprehensive Section 16 Deskbook (Executive Press 2000). Alan, together with Peter Romeo, also manages the content of Section16.net, a website for Section 16 practitioners and compliance officers. He is a frequent lecturer at professional seminars and was an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center from 1991-1996.

Brian Foley has more than 25 years of experience in advising boards of directors, compensation and other board committees and senior managements of major publicly-traded and privately-owned corporations, as well as potential acquirers of, major investors in, and individual senior executives at such companies, on executive compensation and related corporate governance matters.

That experience includes 9 years as a tax attorney and executive compensation and benefits specialist with the law firm of Lord, Day & Lord in New York; 8 years as a principal and senior U.S. executive compensation and M&A/restructuring consultant with Handy Associates in New York and with the New York office of The Wyatt Company (now Watson Wyatt); and 13 years as the head of Brian Foley & Company, Inc.

Since 1985, Mr. Foley has been an advisor on executive compensation matters to boards, board committees, senior managements and individual CEOs and other senior executives at Fortune 500 and other large manufacturing companies in the aerospace, apparel, automotive parts, beverage, biotechnology, building materials, chemicals, computer hardware and software, cosmetics, electronics, electrical equipment, food, household products, industrial equipment, jewelry, luxury goods, metals, mining, pharmaceutical, publishing, photographic equipment, recreational equipment, specialty steel, textile and tobacco industries, among others.

During that period, Mr. Foley has also advised boards, board committees, senior managements and individual CEOs and other senior executives at Fortune 500 and other large service companies, including, among others, financial services companies engaged in investment banking, mortgage and other consumer lending, mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities issuance, asset management, securities brokerage, commercial lending and banking, life and property and casualty insurance and other activities; a variety of telecommunications sector companies; office, industrial and hotel REITs and hotel/resort and other real estate development and/or management companies; department store and specialty retail companies; wholesale distribution companies; airline, trucking, ocean-going transportation, airlines services and aviation leasing companies; gas and electric utilities; diversified services companies; advertising, public relations and other communication companies; a wide range of internet-related companies; and various internet-based, direct mail and other marketing companies.

Mr. Foley has spoken before a number of professional, business and academic groups on the strategic and design issues involved in creating and implementing effective executive compensation programs, and on various related Board and senior management corporate governance topics.

Mr. Foley has also been quoted on numerous occasions on executive compensation and related governance issues in stories appearing in major print publications including, among others, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal (combined total of more than 90 articles since January 2002), and The Washington Post, the Financial Times, and The International Herald Tribune, numerous other major regional/metropolitan newspapers, Fortune, American Banker, and Smart Money. He has also provided commentary on executive compensation and related governance developments in connection with numerous broadcast news reports, including reports appearing on CBS News Sunday Morning, a number of CNBC-TV’s financial news programs, CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and MPR's Marketplace Morning Report. His commentary has also appeared in a number of news wire and internet news service reports (more than 40 since January 2002) appearing on the AP, Reuters, Dow Jones, Bloomberg and Knight-Ridder Tribune news wires, and on Time.com, Forbes.com, CNN/Money.com, CFO.com and elsewhere.

Mr. Foley is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and of Columbia University Law School (where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar), and also has an L.L.M. in tax from New York University Law School. He is also a member of a number of professional organizations and groups, including, among others, the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association, and the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals.

Margaret "Peggy" Foran is Senior Vice President-Corporate Governance, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Pfizer Inc. Prior to joining Pfizer in July 1997, she was an Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary of ITT Corporation from July 1996 until July 1997 and a Vice President, Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary for J. P. Morgan & Co., Inc., as well as Secretary of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York, where she was employed for approximately 12 years. Previously, she was an associate with Reid & Priest.

Ms. Foran received B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) and J.D. degrees from the University of Notre Dame. She is admitted to the New York and Pennsylvania Bars. Ms. Foran is a former Director of The MONY Group Inc and MONY Life Insurance Company. She is a Board Member of Legal Momentum. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society. She is a member of the Board of the International Corporate Governance Network Board of Governors (ICGN). She serves as Co-Chair of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII). She is a member of The Economic Club of New York. She serves on the Corporate Directors Institute’s Independent Advisory Board of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). She is a member of the Disclosure Task Force and Co-Chair of the Director Voting Task Force of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Corporate Laws and Chair of the ABA Committee on Corporate Governance. Ms. Foran is a Director of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), a member of the Executive Committee and the Finance and Audit Committee, the past Chair of the ACC’s Corporate and Securities Law Committee, a member of its New York Chapter and a recipient of ACC’s 1998 “National Committee Member of the Year.” Ms. Foran is a former Chairman, a former director (1996-1999), the former Chair of the Securities Law Committee, and the former Treasurer of the American Society of Corporate Secretaries (ASCS). She is the former Chair of both the Coordinating Committee and the SEC Issues Committee of the Business Roundtable’s Corporate Governance Task Force. Ms. Foran is Vice Chair of the Board of The Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan New York, and also serves on the Business Advisory Council of YAI National Institute for People with Disabilities, as well as the Advisory Committee of the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

She has served as a speaker and panelist for various professional associations, has written several articles on corporate governance and securities law issues and has served on several regulatory task forces.

She lives in Manhattan with her husband, David H. Schmidt, and three daughters.

Amy L. Goodman is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Washington, D.C. office, where she is a member of the firm's Securities Regulation and Corporate Transactions groups.  She advises clients with respect to securities law disclosure and regulatory issues and corporate governance matters, including the representation of independent board committees.

Ms. Goodman joined the firm in 1998 after serving as a free-lance editor and author of books and newsletters on securities and corporate law topics, including Editor-in-Chief of Insights:  The Corporate and Securities Law Advisor, The Investment Lawyer, and The Corporate Governance Advisor, all published by Aspen Law & Business.  She previously was with the Securities and Exchange Commission for 11 years, holding several positions with the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, including Associate Director (EDGAR), Deputy Associate Director, Assistant Chief of the Office of Disclosure Policy, and Chief of the Task Force on Corporate Accountability.  She also served as Legal Assistant and Special Counsel to SEC Chairman Harold Williams and as an attorney in the SEC's Division of Investment Management.

In 1985, Ms. Goodman received the SEC's Distinguished Service Award, and, in 1986, she received the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award.

Ms. Goodman received her Juris Doctorate degree cum laude from the Boston University Law School and an LL.M. with emphasis in securities law, from the Georgetown University Law Center.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Boston University.

Ms. Goodman is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and the State of Massachusetts.  She is Chair of the Shareholder and Investor Relations Subcommittee of the Corporate Governance Committee of the American Bar Association's Business Law Section, and co-chair of the Section's Task Force on Director and Officer Liability.  Ms. Goodman also is a member of the Federal Regulation of the Securities Committee of the Business Law Section and the Securities Law Committee of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals.  She is co-editor of Corporate Governance: Law and Practice, published by LexisNexis (2004) and is a frequent speaker at continuing legal education programs and other professional events.

Carl is the Chairman and CEO of Carl T. Hagberg and Associates, a firm he founded in 1992 that specializes in Shareholder Services and “Retail Investor Relations.“ He is also the editor and publisher of The Shareholder Service Optimizer, a quarterly newsletter which he founded in 1994. Both businesses are dedicated to “Helping public companies - and their suppliers - deliver better and more cost-effective services to investors.”

Carl is considered to be one of the country’s foremost experts on individual investors, on “affinity group” stock ownership programs, on annual meetings and the proxy-voting process and on techniques and technologies that help to deliver better services to investors, even while reducing costs. He has also served as an expert consultant or expert witness in more than a dozen cases involving securities transfers, exchanges and tender offers, lost and restricted securities and proxy voting matters.

He holds a B.A. in economics from NYU and a M.S. from the Columbia University School of Business.

He is a panelist of the American Arbitration Association, a member of the American Society of Corporate Secretaries, now the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Officers, (a former National Treasurer and former president of the N.Y. chapter), the CTA, now the SSA, the National Investor Relations Institute, the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals and the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics. He has also served as a mutual fund director and as a director of a California-chartered trust company.

Ed is a Senior Attorney of Exequity, LLP. Prior to joining Exequity, Ed was a Principal at Buck Consultants where he led Buck’s Technical Solutions and Innovation Team, which is responsible for technical matters impacting compensation, e.g., financial accounting, securities, tax, corporate governance, and institutional shareholder issues. Ed previously served on Hewitt Associates’ Executive Compensation Center of Technical Expertise. Ed has worked with hundreds of companies and has extensive experience in all areas of executive and director compensation.

Ed’s expertise covers a range of technical issues affecting compensation, including equity and cash incentive plans, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) modeling, institutional investor analysis, accounting for equity awards, tax implications of compensation awards and plans, director pay issues, corporate governance issues related to compensation, and proxy disclosure of compensation matters.

Ed’s interest in institutional shareholder issues led him to create numerous tools for companies to use when evaluating and implementing equity compensation plans, including summaries of the proxy voting guidelines of significant institutional shareholders, a share utilization calculator/projector, and the Flexible Share Authorization (created while he headed the ISS modeling and analysis services at Hewitt Associates). Ed also developed a process for conducting ISS modeling that is company-focused and details the key information that companies need in a single report, including a sensitivity analysis of possible share authorizations and an analysis under other significant institutional shareholders’ equity dilution policies.

Ed is a frequent speaker to national and regional industry groups and professional organizations on current technical issues that impact compensation. Ed has authored a number of articles on compensation issues, including most recently Preparing The New Compensation Discussion And Analysis, with Mike Sorensen,  The Corporate Board, March/April 2007, The New Proxy Disclosure Tables: What Goes Where?, BNA’s Executive Compensation Library, November 2006, and an updated version of this article in February 2007, The Final Proxy Disclosure Rules: Implications and Issues, Tax Management Compensation Planning Journal, November 2006, The Proposed Proxy Disclosure Rules: A Critical Look at Their Implications and Issues, Tax Management Compensation Planning Journal, Vol. 34, No. 4, April 7, 2006, and A Roadmap To Successful Executive Compensation Programs, published in Compliance Week, June 2006.

Ed received a B.A. in International Relations from Juniata College, a J.D., cum laude, from Seattle University School of Law, and an LL.M. (Tax), with honors, from IIT-Chicago-Kent College of Law. Ed is an attorney and an active member of the Illinois State Bar and U.S. Tax Court.

Stephen S. Hennigan is the current chair of the CPS Energy Board of Trustees. He is senior vice president and chief financial officer for San Antonio Federal Credit Union, has represented the northeast quadrant of the CPS Energy service area since June 1, 2001, and serves on the Board's Audit Committee.

The certified public accountant has extensive experience with financial markets and has worked in the financial services industry since 1989. He holds a bachelor of business administration degree in finance and accounting from St. Mary's University.

Hennigan's affiliations include Financial Executives International, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants, the Association for Investment Management and Research and the San Antonio Financial Analyst Society. He is a 2001 graduate of Leadership San Antonio.

Keith F. Higgins, a partner in the Boston office of Ropes & Gray LLP, has more than 20 years of experience counseling public companies in securities offerings, mergers and acquisition, corporate governance and executive compensation. He has been recognized as one of the top IPO lawyers in the country by The IPO Journal and is listed in the current editions of The Best Lawyers in America and Chambers USA America's Leading Business Lawyers.

Mr. Higgins also frequently writes and lectures about securities law, corporate governance and executive compensation. He is the incoming Chair of the Federal Regulation of Securities Committee of the American Bar Association's Business Law Section.

Blair Jones focuses on helping clients motivate and retain their talent in ways that contribute to sustained shareholder value creation. She has particular expertise in performance management and executive rewards design. She has worked with leadership teams across a number of industries, including healthcare, retail, telecommunications, professional services and consumer products. She works extensively with companies in transition. Ms. Jones joined Sibson Consulting in 1991. Prior to that time, she worked for Bain & Company, helping clients develop pricing and marketing strategies. She holds a bachelor's degree with highest honors from Williams College and has spoken at the WorldatWork and National Association for Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP) National Conferences on the topics of leadership rewards and talent management. She has also presented at the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) Global Equity Conference, as well as to a variety of industry groups. She has published in many journals including Directors and Boards, World at Work Journal, Workspan, The Journal of Business Strategy and The Corporate Board. She has also been quoted in publications such as The New York Times, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and forbes.com, KiplingerForecasts.com, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and HR Executive.

Mr. Kailer focuses his practice on securities, corporate and partnership law, which includes acquisitions and mergers, particularly those involving public companies. He also focuses on formation, operation and mergers of publicly traded limited partnerships; formation, amendment, acquisition and dissolution of general and limited partnerships; offerings and restructurings of foreign public companies; counseling with respect to general securities, corporate, partnership and business matters; representation of public companies and management in connection with insider or short swing trading issues; and consultation with respect to executive compensation.

Mr. Kay is the Practice Director in charge of Watson Wyatt’s Compensation Practice. His primary focus is on executive compensation at the board level.

Mr. Kay has worked closely with U.S. public, international and private companies, helping them to develop annual and long-term incentive plans to increase shareholder value. His clients include AIG, American Eagle Outfitters, AT&T, Black & Decker, C.R. Bard, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, DirecTV, EMC, Florida Power & Light, General Mills, Intuit, Lockheed Martin, Medco Health Solutions, Inc., Microsoft, Limited Brands, Schering-Plough, Tyco, Wal-Mart, among many others. He has experience in mergers, initial public offerings, and turnaround situations.

Mr. Kay conducts research on stock option overhang, executive pay and performance, and CEO stock ownership. This research is extremely useful to clients and receives significant media coverage.

Mr. Kay has a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in economics from Wayne State University. He has written and spoken broadly on executive compensation issues. He most recently co-authored a book entitled, “Myths and Realities of Executive Compensation”, from Cambridge University Press. He is also a co-author (with Dr. Bruce Pfau) of the book, The Human Capital Edge, from McGraw-Hill. He is also the author of CEO Pay and Shareholder Value: Helping the U.S. Win the Global Economic War, published by St. Lucie Press, and Value at the Top: Solutions to the Executive Compensation Crisis, published by Harper Collins, and numerous other research studies. He has been published in the Harvard Business Review and the McKinsey Quarterly. Mr. Kay has presented analysis of executive compensation issues before the Federal Reserve Board, the S.E.C., the F.A.S.B. and a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

Mike Kesner is the principal in charge of firm's Executive Compensation practice. He has over 26 years' experience working with companies on a wide range of executive compensation issues, including assessment of competitive pay levels, incentive compensation plan design, executive employment agreements and severance benefits, and deferred compensation plans. Mike also has experience with recruitment and retention arrangements, supplemental executive retirement programs, benefit security techniques, board of directors compensation and change-in-control pay issues. He is the independent advisor to the compensation committee of the board of directors on executive compensation matters at several Fortune 500 companies.

Mike has authored articles published in the Harvard Business Review, CFO Magazine, Directors and Boards, National Association of Corporate Directors' newsletter, and served on the NACD's Blue Ribbon Commission on executive pay. He is also a co-author of a chapter in A Practical Guide to SEC Proxy and Compensation Rules. He has often been a guest speaker on compensation and benefit matters at conferences sponsored by the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, Ray Garrett Jr. Corporate and Securities Law Institute, American Bar Association, PLI, Executive Enterprises, Garrett Law Institute (Northwestern University), Tulane Corporate Law Institute and Tennessee Law Institute. Mike is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Illinois CPA Society, and the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals. He received a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Illinois.

Cary Klafter is Vice President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, and Corporate Secretary at Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, California.  The Corporate Legal Group is responsible for the company's corporate-level legal activities, including SEC matters, finance and treasury, mergers & acquisitions, venture investments, investor relations, Board of Directors and other corporate governance matters. 

Mr. Klafter received a BA and an MS from Michigan State University in 1968 and 1971, respectively, and a JD degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972.

Before joining Intel in 1996, Mr. Klafter was a partner in the San Francisco office of the Morrison & Foerster law firm. 

Mr. Klafter is chair of the Public Company Affairs Committee of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals and is a speaker at various legal and business programs.

Chris Kovel is an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley in their technology department. Mr. Kovel was the product manager for the Transferable Stock Options program. In this capacity, he participated in the design, operations, risk and legal aspects of bringing the TSO to production. Mr. Kovel has been with Morgan Stanley since 1994.

Before his time as Editor of TheCorporateCounsel.net, Dave served as Chief Counsel in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance. Dave also worked in the Division of Corporation Finance as a staff attorney and special counsel, and was in private practice at WilmerHale, where he advised public and private companies in SEC matters, securities transactions and corporate governance. Dave frequently writes and speaks about corporate and securities law and teaches a corporate governance class at Georgetown University.

Tim Marnell is Senior Actuary and Professional Standards Officer of Towers Perrin.

Mr. Marnell’s responsibilities include addressing the design, funding and administration of retirement and other employee benefit programs. While most of his work relates to programs for private sector employers, he has also been the actuary for numerous government plans including the design and funding of such plans. Mr. Marnell has frequently been involved with labor negotiations.

Mr. Marnell has designed and determined the financial aspects of nonqualified arrangements such as ERISA excess plans and supplemental executive retirement plans. During his more than 27 years of consulting with Towers Perrin, his clients have included major corporations in the airline, utility and manufacturing industries, among others.

He has made numerous presentations before retirement boards and committees on actuarial and benefits matters, as well as having given speeches on related topics.

His professional qualifications include Fellowship in the Conference of Consulting Actuaries, Associateship in the Society of Actuaries and membership in the American Academy of Actuaries. He is an Enrolled Actuary under ERISA.

Eric Marquardt is a Principal in Towers Perrin’s Executive Compensation practice. Eric has worked with a wide variety of leading public and private companies on executive and director compensation matters, including providing advice to many Fortune-ranked companies.

Eric’s work includes designing and implementing executive pay strategies, developing performance metrics and performance standards, and designing and managing stock and cash based short and long-term incentives. He often develops solutions working in conjunction with both senior management and the compensation committee of the board.

Prior to joining Towers Perrin, Eric served as the Director of Executive Compensation for Merck & Co and managed the Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, CA) office of another leading consulting firm. He has a Master of Arts in Labor Relations from Michigan State University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

David Martin is head of the firm's securities practice group and advises public companies, non-profit organizations, directors, financial professionals, investors and other clients in corporate, corporate governance, securities regulation and transactional matters. He has led teams of lawyers in public offerings, business combination and other change of control transactions, proxy contests and a variety of corporate financings. His practice also includes representing clients in enforcement cases before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, internal investigations and corporate compliance issues. Mr. Martin is a frequent lecturer and author of articles.

Mr. Martin's career includes seven years of service with the SEC, where, prior to joining Covington & Burling, he was the Director of the Division of Corporation Finance. In this position, he was the senior executive officer for the agency's program for review of reports of public companies to securities markets and investors. Previously at the SEC, Mr. Martin served as special counsel to the Chairman.

Mr. Martin is on the boards of the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society, Westover School and Jubilee Jobs, Inc. He had four years of active duty service in the U.S. Navy and received his J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School, where he was Managing Editor of the Virginia Law Review, and his B.A. from Yale University.

Michael Melbinger is a Partner in the Chicago office of Winston & Strawn . Mr. Melbinger heads the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Department. He represents companies, fiduciaries, compensation committees, boards and executives in all aspects of executive compensation and employee benefit plan matters, and related tax, and securities law and ERISA concerns; designs, drafts, and implements all types of executive compensation arrangements, including stock incentive plans, stock option plans, phantom stock plans, long-term incentive plans, and golden parachute arrangements; designs and implements all types of qualified and non-qualified retirement plans; counsels clients in mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings involving executive compensation and ERISA-related matters; handles disputes and litigation that arise from employee benefit plan, fiduciary, or executive compensation matters and advise clients on the interplay between U.S. and non-U.S. benefits laws.

He is the author of Executive Compensation (CCH 2004) and more than fifty articles on executive and employee benefits topics. He writes a blog on CompensationStandards.com. Mr. Melbinger obtained his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 1980 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1983.

Mr. Meyer joined Kellogg Company in 1999 as Vice President, Global Compensation. In 2006 he was promoted to Vice President, International and HR Operations. He has global responsibility for Kellogg’s compensation, benefits, HR practices, and HRIS. Mr. Meyer began his career in 1975 with Monsanto where he held a variety of positions in Human Resources at the plant, division, and corporate levels before leaving in 1987 to join the Hay Group. After three years with the Hay Group he joined Anheuser-Busch where his final position was Director, Compensation and Incentive Plans. In 1997 he left Anheuser-Busch to become Director, Compensation and Benefits for GenCorp, which is the position he held prior to joining Kellogg. Mr. Meyer is a graduate of Michigan State University. He also has a master’s degree from Duquesne University and a Ph.D. from Washington University.

Pearl Meyer, Senior Managing Director of Steven Hall & Partners, has served for more than 30 years as advisor to Boards and senior management, here and abroad, in matters of executive and Board compensation, performance, governance, organization and selection. Mrs. Meyer co-founded Steven Hall & Partners, as well as Pearl Meyer & Partners. She is known for the creation of groundbreaking, innovative compensation strategies that translate corporate goals into managerial results and rewards.

Mrs. Meyer and her Partners are retained as outside independent counsel by the Compensation Committees of Boards of Directors in the discharge of their fiduciary responsibilities. She has played an integral role in developing many of today’s most widely used Board and executive compensation programs and arrangements. As a recognized authority on corporate governance, she also serves as expert witness in executive compensation litigation.

Mrs. Meyer is regularly quoted by major news organizations and is a frequent contributor to business periodicals. She has served as Chairman and keynote speaker for The Conference Board, the National Association of Corporate Directors, WorldatWork and the American Management Association, as well as for seminars at Harvard, Yale and other leading business schools.

A cum laude graduate with Ph.D. studies at the New York University Stern Graduate School of Business Administration, Mrs. Meyer received her initial training in executive compensation at Kraft.

Ron Mueller is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  Mr. Mueller works in the corporate/securities area with an emphasis on proxy and disclosure issues, corporate governance, executive compensation (including Section 16 and Rule 144) and corporate transactions.

From September 1989 to June 1991, Mr. Mueller separated from the firm to work as legal counsel to Commissioner Edward H. Fleischman at the United States Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).  While at the SEC, Mr. Mueller worked on many of the matters before the Commission, including enforcement matters and regulatory initiatives.

Mr. Mueller is admitted to practice before the courts of New York and Washington, D.C., and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association and the American Bar Association.  As well, he is a member of the Subcommittee on Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation of the Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities (Section of Business Law, American Bar Association) and a member of the American Society of Corporate Secretaries.

Mr. Mueller has written articles and spoken at seminars about a variety of securities law issues, including trends and developments in proxy disclosures and proxy contests, the SEC's disclosure requirements, corporate governance developments, and executive compensation disclosure rules.  Mr. Mueller is a contributing author to A Practical Guide to Section 16, Aspen Law & Business; A Practical Guide to SEC Proxy and Compensation Rules, Aspen Law & Business; and Federal Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Insider Reporting and Short-Swing Trading, Matthew Bender.

Mr. Mueller received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1986, where he was both a Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar and a James Kent Scholar, and his B.A., magna cum laude, from Vanderbilt University in 1982.

John Olson, a 1964 honors graduate of the Harvard Law School, is a founding partner of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Washington, D.C. office.  Mr. Olson has extensive experience in general representation of business organizations as to corporate governance, corporate securities, corporate finance and merger and acquisition matters.  He has acted as special counsel for boards of directors and board committees on governance issues and in assessing shareholder litigation, responding to business combination proposals and conducting internal investigations.  He also has represented corporations, broker-dealer firms and individuals in defense of Securities and Exchange Commission and other governmental investigations.

In the American Bar Association (ABA), Mr. Olson is Chairman of the Business Law Section's Committee on Corporate Governance, and was recently a member of the Presidential Task Force on Corporate Responsibility appointed by the President of the ABA.  Previously, he was Chairman of the ABA's Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities (1991-1995).  He is a member of the Executive Council of the Securities Committee of the Federal Bar Association.

For the ABA, Mr. Olson has also chaired the Task Force on Regulation of Insider Trading, which produced a comprehensive analysis of and report on U.S. insider trading law, and he chairs the Task Force which has produced the third (2001) and fourth (2004) editions of The Corporate Director's Guidebook.  He served for nine years on the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange and was a member of the Legal Advisory Board of the National Association of Securities Dealers.  He was a Founding Trustee of the American College of Investment Counsel.  In 1987, he served on a select committee of leading securities lawyers, appointed by the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which drafted definitive insider trading legislation introduced in the United States Congress.

In 2004, Mr. Olson was identified by Legal Times as one of the "10 Leading Securities Attorneys" in the Washington, D.C. area.  A frequent lecturer at legal and business seminars, Mr. Olson co-chairs various seminars on an annual basis.  He is on the executive committee for the San Diego Securities Regulation Institute and the advisory committee for the Practicing Law Institute's Annual Securities Regulation Institute.  He is the author of more than 100 articles and a member of the editorial advisory boards for a variety of securities and corporate law publications.  Mr. Olson is the co-author ofDirector and Officer Liability: Indemnification and Insurance, published by West Publishing (revised 2002) and has edited several other books on securities law issues.  Mr. Olson was the Distinguished Visiting Practitioner in Residence at Cornell Law School in Spring 2003 and is currently an adjunct professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law.

George Paulin has been a consultant specializing in the areas of executive and employee compensation for more than 25 years, and is nationally known as an advisor to board compensation committees and management.

He joined Frederic W. Cook & Company in 1982. He was named president of the firm in 1994, and assumed responsibility as Chief Executive Officer in 2001. He opened the firm’s Chicago office in 1983, and in 1987 he opened the office in Los Angeles where he currently resides. During the past two years, the Cook firm has served more than 45% of the current Fortune 200 companies, and over 1,400 major U.S. companies since the firm was founded as an independent organization owned by its principal consultants in 1973.

In 2004, he attended over 130 board compensation committee meetings. He was a member of the WorldatWork (formerly the American Compensation Association) faculty for more than 15 years until 2002, where he was instrumental in developing its certification courses on executive compensation. He served on the WorldatWork Executive Compensation Council from 1991 to 1997. In 2004, he was named to the Advisory Board of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP), and made an honorary life member of WorldatWork.

His writing and research on executive-related topics is well known. Recent published articles include "Ideas for Improving Equity Compensation," "Use and Misuse of Restricted Stock," and "Using Stock to Retain Key Employees." He has recently been a keynote speaker at sessions sponsored by the American Bar Association, Conference Board, National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, Stanford Law School Institutional Investor Forum, and Northwestern Law School Corporate Counsel Institute.

Mr. Paulin has a master’s degree from the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois, where he has been active in alumni affairs and received their Distinguished Alumni Reward in 1990. His undergraduate degree is in economics.

Dave Segre is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he works with public and private technology, Internet, and life sciences companies through all stages of their growth, from start-up through public offerings and beyond. In 2004, he was part of the legal team that brought Google public, and continues to represent Google in a variety of corporate, securities, and mergers and acquisitions matters. His client list also includes venture capitalists and investment bankers. Dave was elected as a partner of the firm in 1992, served on its Executive Committee from 1999 to 2000, and has served on its Policy Committee since 2005.

Dave specializes in the areas of corporate and securities law, including general corporate representations, venture capital financings, public offerings, and mergers and acquisitions. In addition, he has extensive experience in counseling publicly held companies on defensive measures, disclosure matters, and other complex securities law issues.

Prior to joining the firm, Dave was an investment banker with Lehman Brothers, working out of its San Francisco office to service technology companies on financings, merger and acquisition transactions, and other engagements.

Mr. Spector focuses his practice on serving technology and software clients in establishing and administering equity compensation and other employee benefit arrangements. His practice emphasizes mergers and acquisitions, the compensation issues that arise in connection with such transactions, representing executives in employment negotiations and corporate governance matters involving executive compensation matters.

Martha Steinman has expertise in executive compensation, employee benefits, qualified and nonqualified plans, and welfare plans. She advises clients on the design and implementation of executive compensation arrangements and employee benefit plans, with an emphasis on tax and securities law considerations. Ms. Steinman works with clients to address employee benefit issues in the context of mergers and acquisitions. She also counsels clients regarding the use of captives to reinsure employee benefit arrangements and in securing exemptions from the U.S. Department of Labor.

A significant portion of Ms. Steinman's practice is in equity compensation. Additionally, she works with clients to negotiate employment and severance agreements, design compensation packages, and on retirement planning. She has expertise in advising publicly held companies on the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on their executive compensation and other employee benefit plans. Prior to joining Dewey & LeBoeuf, Ms. Steinman was a partner with Rosenman & Colin LLP. She is Chair of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals' New York Chapter.

Doug Stewart is a Senior Attorney, Legal and Corporate Affairs at Intel Corporation. Mr. Stewart’s responsibilities include securities, corporate governance, ethics and compliance matters.

Mr. Stewart received a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1997 and a J.D. from the Boston University School of Law in 2000. Prior to joining Intel in 2005, Mr. Stewart was an associate in the Mountain View, California office of Fenwick and West LLP.

Linda is the Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement. She has been a member of the Commission's Division of Enforcement staff for over ten years. She joined the staff in 1995 as an Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel. In 1997 she was named an Assistant Director and was named an Associate Director in 2000. She became the Deputy Director of the Division of Enforcement in 2002. In May 2005, she became the eighth Director of the Division of Enforcement.

Before joining the staff of the Commission, Ms. Thomsen was in private practice and also served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maryland. She received her A.B. from Smith College and her law degree from Harvard University.

Mark Van Clieaf is Managing Director of MVC Associates International, based in Tampa and Toronto. A leading consultancy in integrating organization / accountability design, leadership assessment, and pay for performance linked to value for shareholders and society.

His recent research into pay for performance and executive compensation has identified a number of potential new liabilities that Board Directors face in this new post Worldcom / Disney era. Recent ground breaking research includes the fact that 60 US companies that destroyed over $ 700 billion in value over 5 years paid their named executive officers $ 12 billion in total direct compensation. See "The Myths of Executive Compensation", "New Compensation Committee Liabilities" and "Executive Accountability & Excessive Compensation: A New Test For Director Liability" at www.mvcinternational.com or www.compensationstandards.com

His over 15 years or organization consulting has identified 5 Levels of CEO Work and accountability, and 5 Levels of Corporate Governance, which form the foundation for 5 Levels of Innovation and Enterprise Sustainability. Current check the box approaches to corporate governance fails to get at the core organizational and leadership issues required to sustain value creation for shareholders and society. See "The New DNA of Corporate Governance" and "Are Boards and CEOs accountable for the Right Level of Work?" at www.mvcinternational.com

The Failure of having Boards and CEOs accountable at the right Level of Work risks the loss of shareholder capital. Over 50 % of the top 1800 public companies in North America have failed to return a profit greater than their cost of capital over 5 years, Boards / CEO's operating at to low a Level of Work also results in failure to take into account the broader environmental and societal level risks that impact longer term shareholder value and the broader business ecosystem.

Mark is a guest Lecturer on Corporate Governance (organization, leadership and pay for performance design) at the Ivey School of Business.

He is a frequent speaker on organization design, CEO Accountability, executive Pay for Performance, and succession planning, all linked to shareholder value.

He was a Commissioner for the National Association of Corporate Directors, Blue Ribbon Commission on CEO Succession Planning, in Washington DC. He was a Founding Member, Executive Selection Research Advisory Board, Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro NC and was Special Guest Editor, Human Resource Planning, for the Human Resource Planning Society, based in New York, NY. He is also past President of the The Strategic Leadership Forum.

He is currently a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and the International Corporate Governance Network.

Previously he was with Price Waterhouse in their Business Strategy and Executive Search Consulting Practices, working across 4 continents. Including playing a role in setting up the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board and recruiting its first CEO in 1990.

His early career was in the advertising, direct marketing, graphic design industries. He holds an undergraduate degree in economics and business and a post graduate diploma in international business.

He can be reached at mark@mvcinternational.com.

Mr. White is the Director of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He joined the SEC staff in March 2006. Prior to joining the staff, Mr. White was a partner for over 25 years at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, where he represented public companies and their financial advisors on a wide variety of matters including public financings, public reporting obligations, corporate governance issues, restatements and other financial crises.

At the SEC, Mr. White led the Commission’s development and adoption of final rules for executive compensation disclosure, which were unanimously approved by the Commission on July 26, 2006. He has also played an instrumental role in the Commission’s recent steps to improve the implementation of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act regarding internal control over financial reporting.

Mr. White has been a frequent speaker on the securities laws and corporate governance and has been actively involved with leading securities law conferences around the country. He is currently serving as Vice Chairman of the Securities Regulation Institute. Mr. White received his J.D. from New York University School of Law and his B.S. in accounting from the University of Virginia.

Ms. Zeis joined McDonald’s Corporation in 2006 as Director – Global Compensation. She has responsibility for McDonald’s broadbased compensation programs and policies on a global basis. Her work includes overseeing and consulting in the design or modification of all compensation programs, recognition and reward programs and the expatriate policies at McDonald’s.

Prior to joining McDonald’s, Ms. Zeis spent 13 years in the Compensation Consulting Groups at Deloitte Consulting and Arthur Andersen LLP. Ms. Zeis received a B.S. in Actuarial Science from Butler University in 1991.