Directors Forum

AGENDA

Monday, March 3

6:00 - 7:00 pm

Welcome Reception

Join fellow attendees to kick off the event with some fun at the Topgolf Swing Suite at the Westin.

Tuesday, March 4

8:00 - 8:30 am

Registration & Networking Breakfast

8:30 am - 9:30 am

New Director Coffee and Mentoring Workshop

We invite executives seeking their first public company board to gain advice from veteran directors, followed by 1-on-1 discussions.  

  • Gain tips for your board search and finding the right opportunity for you 
  • Understand the differences between serving on a public company versus private company board 
  • Learn how to prepare yourself to contribute immediately once you join a board

9:30 – 9:45 am

Forum Kick-off

9:45 am – 12:15 pm

Peer-to-Peer Exchanges (Concurrent)

The peer-driven format of these sessions encourages active dialogue among participants. Don’t miss the opportunity to engage with director peers in a private, off-the-record setting to share challenges and solutions. No PowerPoint presentations! Participants help develop the discussion outline to ensure the most relevant conversation with actionable takeaways to improve your board committee’s effectiveness in the year ahead. Select from the following concurrent session based on your board role and interests:  

  • Audit Committee  
  • Compensation Committee  
  • Nominating/Governance Committee
  • CEOs & Executive Chairs
  • General Counsel 
  • Private Company Boards  

 

For qualified executives not yet on a board, participate in the concurrent 

Prospective Directors Board Resume Workshop 
You’re up against 22,500 other qualified board candidates. So, it’s important that your communication documents (Resume, Bio, Cover Letter, LinkedIn Profile), look every bit as good as you are. This session will take you through the simple points to make this happen and review the essential elements of leveraging LinkedIn. You’ll have the opportunity to finetune your cover letter and board bio and share it with other participants for feedback. 

Tate Pursell

Board Member, Air+ Inc

12:15 – 1:15 pm

Networking Lunch

1:15 – 2:15 pm

Building Championship Boards

Best-in-class boards, like best-in-class sports teams all have a fundamental set of core competencies in common. The same qualities that make all-pro players make all-pro directors. What can boards learn from successful pro teams about organizational resiliency and competitive advantage? We’ll sit down with 4 former professional athletes to look at the parallels of championship teams and the leadership lessons we can all take from the field to the boardroom.

Cristina Dolan

Board Member, SealSQ, Wisekey and GRIID

Joanna Lohman

Former Washington Spirit, USWNT Member; Author, Raising Tomorrow's Champions

Brad Oates

Former Board Member, CIT Group; Co-Founder, Former Pro Athlete Professional Governance Certificate Program at UTD

Roman Oben

Vice President of Football Development, NFL

2:15 – 3:05 pm

Understanding the Evolving Activist Playbook

In 2023, 550 U.S. companies were publicly subjected to activist demands, an 8% rise over the previous year and nearly 70% more than the 326 targeted a decade earlier. But you don’t have to think of a potential activist campaign as automatically negative. Learning to think like an activist can also help you tap into ideas to bring about value-creating strategic change and stronger business models. Most activists tend to follow a predefined process to identify and engage target companies. We’ll explore three main components of the activist playbook—linking performance failures to organizational weaknesses, developing a plan of action, and creating a narrative in support of change— to help your board deal appropriately with a potential activist campaign, as the best interests of the company may indicate.

Howard Brownstein

Former Board Member, P&F Industries, A&M Castle & Co. and PICO Holdings

Pat Tucker

Senior Managing Director, Strategic Communications – Americas Head of M&A, Activism & Governance, FTI Consulting

Derek Zaba

Partner, Co-Chair, Shareholder Activism & Corporate Defense Practice, Sidley Austin LLP

3:05 – 3:30 pm

Networking Break

3:30 – 4:20 pm

How Savvy Boards Build Strong Benches to Avoid Pitfalls in CEO Succession

Most boards rightly put CEO succession among their top priorities. They make time, discuss candidates, and bring their most rigorous thinking to the decision process. Unfortunately, those good intentions don’t guarantee success. New CEOs fail at least 20% of the time (far more often by some estimates), but not for lack of effort. There are common recurring challenges that cause boards to stumble time and again, adding risk and uncertainty to the most important decision boards make. In this interactive dialogue, the panel will review live examples and data that illustrate several of the most common, but vexing dilemmas in the CEO succession process and how savvy boards avoid the pitfalls that snare so many.

Jonathan Foster

Board Member, Lear Corp. and Berry Global Group

Steve Halverson

Board Member, CSX

Matt Paese

Senior Vice President, Leadership Insights, DDI

4:20 – 5:15 pm

Offense Versus Defense: What Is (or Should Be) Your AI Strategy?

For the past 18 months, we’ve heard about generative AI’s potential to revolutionize business operations, enhance consumer wellbeing and foster unparalleled societal benefits. And we know that unlocking these advantages hinges on our ability to adeptly manage and mitigate associated risks—data integrity, data privacy, data bias, to name a few. We’ll explore how companies can take a balanced approach to offense and defense when thinking about the strategic integration of AI in business decision-making to help your board navigate this new era responsibly.  

Sheila Bangalore

Board Member, Games Global, Paloma Health, and StoneAge Tools

Samantha Kappagoda

Board Member, Credit Suisse Funds, Chief Data Scientist, Numerati® Partners LLC

5:15 – 8:00 pm

Networking Reception & Dinner

Hosted at The Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters

The Star is the 91-acre campus of the Dallas Cowboys World Headquarters and practice facility in Frisco, Texas. Developed as a first-of-its-kind partnership between the City of Frisco and Frisco ISD, The Star gives fans the opportunity to connect with the Dallas Cowboys in ways they have never imagined.

Ford Center is comprised of a multi-purpose, 12,000 seat, indoor stadium as well as the entire Dallas Cowboys football operations and practice fields. The indoor stadium at Ford Center provides a state-of-the-art facility shared by the Dallas Cowboys, City of Frisco and Frisco ISD. The longstanding partnership that Ford and North Texas Ford Dealers have enjoyed with high school football and the Dallas Cowboys made Ford Center a seamless fit.

Interested attendees will have an opportunity to tour the facility during the reception.

Wednesday, March 5

8:00 – 9:00 am

Networking Breakfast and Optional Ask the Expert Roundtables 

Speaker: Keri Granger, CEO and Principal, TGN Consulting

Boards often intend to support the C-Suite, but they can inadvertently create unnecessary friction, from time-draining reporting requirements to risk-averse oversight that stifles innovation. In this interactive roundtable, we’ll explore the conditions under which boards become powerful catalysts for growth—or serious obstacles. We’ll share strategies for fostering authentic dialogue, aligning on core objectives, and shifting board–executive relationships to amplify value and return. 

9:00 – 9:05 am

Day 2 Welcome

9:05 - 10:35 am

Cybersecurity Governance: Where Do Good Boards Go Wrong

Companies across all industries continue to face a growing landscape of cyber risks, including vulnerabilities from third-party providers and tech integrations. What separates companies who successfully recover after incidents from those who suffer significant consequences? This case-study driven discussion will pull lessons from CrowdStrike and other recent front-page notable cybersecurity incidents to give you actionable insights to help your organization prepare for emerging threats, address legacy problems that may impact your resilience, and improve your tech stack hygiene to safeguard your organization against cyber threats third-party vulnerabilities.

Vanessa Pegueros

Board Member, LivePerson and Prisidio

Amy Rojik

Leader, U.S. Center for Corporate Governance, BDO

10:35 – 10:50 am

Networking Break

10:50 – 11:30 am

Future-Proofing Your Growth Strategies: Winning Plays for Sustained Success

If continuous cost growth is the new normal, driven by technology, soaring government spending, rising employee healthcare costs and global disorder, then boards must work with their management teams to develop 5-year growth strategies that can withstand economic frictions. Productivity initiatives, new product launches, and pricing strategies to maintain margins all require a rethink. We’ll arm you with smart plays for your board to work with management to unlock your company’s full profit potential. 

Adam Echter

Partner, Simon-Kucher

11:30 am – 1:00 pm

Lunch with Closing Keynote:

The Rules of the Game: What It Takes to Drive Shareholder Value

A Fireside Chat with one of America’s Top Value-Creating Directors

It’s one thing to use quantitative measures to identify high-performing independent board members, but it’s quite another to figure out what qualities lead to those superior results. What metrics can be teased out as qualifications or predictors that put the most effective board members atop thousands of peers? It’s not random, and it is repeatable: They’re doing something different that is producing markedly better results.  

We’ll sit down with one of America’s top 10 value-creating directors for candid advice and invaluable on handling boardroom disagreements, steering through setbacks, fundamental principles of communication, staying informed, and be willing to color outside the lines. You’ll leave inspired and ready to raise your game in the boardroom.  

J.C. Watts

Board Member, Dillard’s and Paycom Software

1:00 pm

Event Concludes