18th Annual Kravis-de Roulet Leadership Conference

Joseph L. Bower
Donald Kirk David Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Joseph Bower – is Donald Kirk David Professor of Business Administration, has been a leader in general management at Harvard Business School for 35 years. The faculty chair of “The Corporate Leader” until this year he served as the founding faculty chair of “The General Manager Program,” both in Executive Education. An expert on corporate strategy, organization, and leadership, he has devoted much of his teaching and research to challenges confronting corporate leaders in today’s rapidly changing hyper-competitive conditions. Presently, he is focusing on the management of CEO succession. His most recent Harvard Business Review article “Solve the Succession Crisis by Growing Inside-Outside Leaders” examines 1,800 CEO successions. Professor Bower found that companies performed significantly better when they appointed insiders to the job of CEO.

Patrick Canavan
Senior Vice President
Global Governance for Motorola

Patrick J. Canavan- is Senior Vice President, Global Governance for Motorola, where he provides consultation for the Board of Directors, Chairman and CEO and the Senior Leadership Team on issues of corporate governance, globalization and integration within Motorola.

Dan R. Dalton
Director of the Institute for Corporate Governance, Dean Emeritus, and
Harold A. Poling Chair of Strategic Management in the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University

Dan R. Dalton- is the founding Director of the Institute for Corporate Governance, Dean Emeritus, and the Harold A. Poling Chair of Strategic Management in the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. An authority on corporate governance, Dalton has published more than 180 articles in law, corporate strategy, management, ethics and psychology. He is one of the leading experts on corporate governance and executive compensation issues. His research examines whether CEO and board chairman roles should be separated and the role of the board in CEO succession.

Charles Elson
Chair in Corporate Governance and Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance
Lerner College of Business & Economics, University of Delaware

Charles M. Elson- is the Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., Chair in Corporate Governance and the Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. Professor Elson has written extensively on the subject of boards of directors. He served on the National Association of Corporate Directors' Commissions on Director Compensation, Director Professionalism, CEO Succession, Audit Committees, Strategic Planning and Director Evaluation, was a member of its Best Practices Council on Coping With Fraud and Other Illegal Activity, and presently serves on that organization’s Advisory Council. He is presently, a member of the Board of Directors of AutoZone, Inc., the national automobile parts retailer, HealthSouth Corporation, a healthcare services provider.

Sydney Finkelstein
Steven Roth Professor of Management
Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

Sydney Finkelstein- is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School at Dartmouth College, where he teaches courses on Leadership and Strategy. He also teaches executive education at the Tuck School (where he serves as the Faculty Director of the flagship Tuck Executive Program). Professor Sydney Finkelstein is the author of the book Why Smart Executives Fail. Based on a six-year study of 51 companies and 197 interviews of business leaders, the book identifies the fundamental reasons why major mistakes happen, points out the early warning signals that are critical for board directors, investors and managers alike, and offers ideas on how corporate boards and organizations can develop a capability of learning from corporate mistakes and preempting executive failures. The book was one of Fortune's Best Business Books for the Summer of 2003 and was an Amazon bestseller, #2 in Business and Investing. 

Edward Lawler
Distinguished Professor of Business
University of Southern California Marshall School of Business
Director, Center for Effective Organizations

Edward E. Lawler- is a Distinguished Professor of Business at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and is the founder and Director of USC’s Center for Effective Organizations. He is a consultant to many corporations and governments including the majority of the Fortune 100. Professor Lawler has written over 300 articles and 36 books that have been translated into nine languages and sold over a quarter of a million copies. He is a preeminent authority on improving corporate boardroom performance, change management and human resources development. Professor Lawler has written extensively on how boards can most effectively evaluate themselves and the CEO and promote leadership that is shared among board members. His co-authored book Corporate Boards: New Strategies for Adding Value at the Top is one of the top resources in the field of corporate board governance.

Richard W Leblanc
Professor, Atkinson School of Administrative Studies
York University

Richard Leblanc- is professor of Corporate Governance, Law and Ethics in York University’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies. Leblanc’s book, Inside the Boardroom: How Boards Really Work and the Coming Revolution in Corporate Governance has received critical acclaim from both private and public sectors. He has served as an expert witness for under-performing boards, advised regulators and securities commissions on the assessment of individual directors, and has been an external advisor to boards that have won national awards and peer endorsement from large institutional shareholders for their corporate governance practices.

Jay W. Lorsch
Louis Kirstein Professor of Human Relations
Harvard Business School

Jay W. Lorsch- is the Louis E. Kirstein Professor of Human Relations at the Harvard Business School. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on corporate boards. He has authored over a dozen books, including Back to the Drawing Board: Designing Corporate Boards for a Complex World (October 2003) and Pawns or Potentates: The reality of America’s Corporate Boards (1989). He is currently Chairman of the Harvard Business School Global Corporate Governance Initiative and Faculty Chairman of the Executive Education Corporate Governance Series.

Nell Minow
Editor and Founder
The Corporate Library

Nell Minow- is editor and Co-Founder of The Corporate Library, an independent research firm and industry-leading provider of corporate governance and compensation data and analysis on over 3,000 public U.S. companies and over 30,000 corporate executives and directors. Its board effectiveness rating allows investors and analysts to evaluate governance as an element of investment risk. Ms. Minow was named one of the 30 most influential investors of 2002 by Smart Money Magazine and called "the queen of good corporate governance" by Business Week Online.

Denise Morrison
President
Campbell USA

Denise Morrison- is Senior Vice President and President-North America Soup, Sauces and Beverages. She is responsible for leading the Campbell USA, North America Foodservice & StockPot, and Campbell Canada businesses. She is a director on the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company board and a former director on the Ballard Power Systems board.

Kenneth Novack
Chairman
Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc.

Kenneth M. Novack- is Chairman of Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc., which is one of the nation’s largest recyclers of ferrous metals, a leading recycler of used and recycled auto parts and a manufacturer of finished steel products. Until December, 2006, Mr. Novack was Chairman of Schnitzer Investment Corp. and Liberty Maritime Corp., a real estate development and investment firm and ocean shipping concern, respectively held by the Schnitzer families.

Roger Raber
National Association of Corporate Directors

Roger W. Raber- is Senior Advisor and Former President and CEO of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Founded in 1977, NACD has 10,000 members and is the only non-profit professional organization devoted exclusively to providing information, research, and education for corporate directors and leading non-profit boards. As the chief spokesman for corporate boards, Dr. Raber has testified before Congress on the recent corporate governance legislation and reforms, and has provided commentary on board governance principles and policies to a variety of policymakers, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nasdaq, and New York Stock Exchange. He has also advised professional organizations representing corporate counsels, internal auditors, and institutional investors, among others. Dr. Raber has served on corporate boards and audit committees in the financial services industry.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld
Senior Associate Dean for Executive Programs & Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management
Yale School of Management

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld – is a Senior Associate Dean for Executive Programs & Lester Crown Professor in the Practice of Management. He was a full professor at Emory's Goizueta Business School and Harvard Business School, and is founder and president of The Chief Executive Leadership Institute, a non-profit educational and research institute focused on CEO leadership and corporate governance. Jeffrey has written a number of books on high performance leadership and management including, most recently, FIRING BACK: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters. He is a frequent commentator on CEOs and the performance of corporate boards.

Elise Walton
Mercer Delta
Board Governance Practice

Elise Walton- is a partner at Oliver Wyman Consulting, LLC specializing in the practice areas of corporate governance, strategic change management, organization architecture, and executive leadership. Her projects have included CEO evaluation; board assessment; merger and acquisition due diligence and integration process support; executive team effectiveness. Hewlett Packard, AT & T, Fannie Mae, Ford, AXA Equitable, Merck, Lucent, Pepsi, Tyco, TXU and Unilever are some of her clients. She has an active speaking practice including talks for the Conference Board, the National Association of Corporate Directors, the Planning Forum, the Human Resource Planning Society, and individual companies. Dr. Walton has authored several books including Discontinuous Change, Executive Teams, The Advice Business, Dynamics of Organizational Change and Learning, and Behind the Factory Walls.

Peter A. Weinberg
Partner
Perella Weinberg Partners, LP

Peter Weinberg - is a founding partner of Perella Weinberg Partners, a private financial services firm that provides M&A advisory and alternative asset management services. Mr. Weinberg has been in the investment banking industry for over 25 years. Prior to joining Perella Weinberg Partners, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs International, based in London. He was elected Partner of the firm in 1992, co-headed the Global Investment Banking Division, and served on the Management Committee for 6 years. He also co-headed the Partnership Committee. Mr. Weinberg is on the board of BAE Systems plc in London.

Maggie Wilderotter
Chairman and CEO
Citizens Communications

Maggie Wilderotter – is Chairman and CEO of Citizens Communications, a full-service communications provider of telephone, television, and Internet products and services. Prior to Citizens Communications, Wilderotter was senior vice president of worldwide public sector at Microsoft. She has also served as president and CEO of Wink Communications Inc., as well as executive vice president of national operations for AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and chief executive officer of AT&T's aviation communications division. Earlier in her career, she was a senior vice president of McCaw Cellular Communications Inc. She serves on the board of directors of The McClatchy Co., Quantum Corp, and Xerox.