Rich has been in the financial services industry since 1987 with most of his career focused on shareholder communications and proxy event management.

Rich is the Director of Issuer Solutions at Mediant, responsible for overseeing the delivery of investor communication solutions to funds, annuities, alternative investments and corporate issuers. Rich and his team support Mediant’s distinctive high tech and high touch approach, delivering technology leadership with an unparalleled white-glove service model. Rich brings his extensive experience in the proxy lifecycle to support Mediant’s continued growth across all issuer types.

Prior to joining Mediant, Rich managed corporate issuer programs at Georgeson LLC, where he designed and executed successful solicitation strategies to support long-term corporate governance goals. Prior to Georgeson, Rich spent over 12 years in leadership roles at Broadridge Financial Solutions, where he was responsible for client services, operations and product management for mutual fund proxy solicitation services. He has held management roles at D.F. King & Co., leading call center operations for corporate issuer and mutual fund proxy solicitation campaigns and John Hancock Signature Services, where he led shareholder and broker service teams. Earlier in his career, Rich held the position of assistant vice president of legal operations at Putnam Investments where he led all proxy efforts including vendor selection and oversight.

Rich is an active member of leading industry associations including National Investment Company Service Association (NICSA), Insured Retirement Institute (IRI), Investment Company Institute (ICI), Society for Corporate Governance, Institute for Portfolio Alternatives (IPA), and National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI).

Rich is graduate of the Securities Industry Institute, sponsored by SIFMA and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a certificate from the Corporate Governance Bootcamp Program at New York University’s School of Law. Rich attended Northeastern University where he studied organizational leadership.

Simon Bryan heads up the North American arm of Lumi, and has over 20 years knowledge and experience of delivering successful annual meetings and stakeholder engagement events for some of the largest organisations across the US. Working with all the leading TA’s in the market, as well as directly with Issuers, Simon’s extensive market knowledge has helped companies successfully harness the power of virtual meetings, and coupled with Lumi’s market leading on-premise capabilities, delivered hundreds of successful hybrid meetings.

Matt DiGuiseppe is the Vice President of Research & ESG at Diligent Corporation, leading provider of secure board communication and governance, risk and compliance software used by over 700,000 corporate leaders globally. In his role, Matt leads the ESG (environmental, social and governance) Center of Excellence and a research team focused on ESG topics. He is also responsible for ensuring that Diligent meets its ESG commitments, including a pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

Previously, as Head of Americas Asset Stewardship at State Street Global Advisors, Matt and his colleagues were responsible for developing and implementing SSGA’s global proxy voting policies and guidelines across all investment strategies and managing SSGA’s proxy voting activities and issuer engagement on material ESG issues. He was also a member of the internal Proxy Review Committee. Prior to this role he held a similar position on the Nuveen (fka TIAA) Stewardship & Corporate Governance Team.

Brandon Egren is Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary at Verizon.  He advises on corporate governance policies and procedures, securities law compliance matters, subsidiary governance, and Delaware corporate law matters.  His responsibilities include, among other things, overseeing activities relating to Verizon’s annual meeting of shareholders, including preparation of the proxy statement and management of shareholder proposals; preparing governance-related filings and reviewing periodic reports pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; overseeing domestic legal entity management activities; and supporting internal legal restructuring initiatives.

Prior to joining Verizon, Brandon practiced in the capital markets groups of Jones Day and Hogan Lovells US LLP in New York City and Washington, D.C., respectively.  He holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Byron Loflin is the Global Head of Board Engagement at Nasdaq, where he leads the Board Engagement team in providing a strategic, collaborative, and technology-based approach to support boards’ efforts in strengthening governance effectiveness.

The portfolio of governance services and products includes a variety of board, CEO, and management evaluations, streamlined Directors’ and Officers’ Questionnaire and pre-proxy disclosure processes, and the Nasdaq Boardvantage board portal.

Byron is the founder and former CEO of the Center for Board Excellence (CBE), which was acquired by Nasdaq in 2019. His experience and expertise are in the design and administration of evaluations, as well as advising boards, board chairs, CEOs, and executive management on board strategy.

Granville Martin is Head of Americas Policy and Outreach at the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF, formerly Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)) where he leads engagement with US and Latin American regulators, corporates and trade associations.

Prior to joining VRF, Granville was Senior Vice President for Policy & Advocacy and General Counsel at the Society for Corporate Governance where he led the Society’s advocacy efforts related to corporate governance, securities law and regulation and other related issues.  Granville also led the Society’s ESG-related efforts including assisting members in navigating the increased demands for disclosure and engagement, creating dialogue among issuers, investors and other stakeholders, and representing Society views in a variety of forums.

Prior to joining the Society, Granville was a Managing Director of Sustainable Finance for JPMorgan Chase & Co. where he led a range of ESG-related initiatives, including working with investment and commercial banking units to manage environmental and social risks, engaging with clients and external stakeholders and advising the senior management and the Board.  Key sectors included oil and gas, mining, timber, prison services, firearms, and other sectors with significant environmental and/or social impact.

After graduating law school, Granville joined the Office of the Counsel to Governor George Pataki of New York working on environmental issues such as wastewater treatment, New York City watershed protection and green buildings.  He also worked on local government and mental health issues and negotiated with the State Legislature.  After leaving the Pataki Administration, Mr. Martin represented the Financial Services Forum prior to joining JPMorgan Chase in 2005.

Mr. Martin earned a B.A. from Boston University and a J.D. from University of San Francisco and is admitted to the bar in New York and California.

• Phil Redman serves as the Offering Manager for OneTrust ESG which simplifies the complex task of collecting and reporting on corporate ESG data. In his role, Redman is responsible for the product development and direction of the offering, leading the sales and product engineering team on OneTrust ESG, and day-to-day delivery. He enjoys working with customers and providing features and benefits they now love but didn’t know they needed. Redman brings over 15 years of global, enterprise experience and has led teams on technology product development and strategy at Accenture, Citrix, and was VP and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner. He has a B.A. from Temple University and an M.S. from Boston University on Business Communications.

Abby Roberts is responsible for developing Datasite’s corporate product marketing strategy. Prior to Datasite, Abby was VP, Strategy at Pearson and Global Editor of Mergermarket at Acuris. As a financial journalist, Abby covered the consumer, eCommerce and retail industry. She received her JD from Georgetown University Law Center and BA from Bard College.

Brian Short is a corporate transactional attorney and Co-Leader of the firm’s Securities and Capital Markets practice. He focuses on securities, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, venture capital, corporate finance, and general corporate matters.

Brian represents companies, private equity firms, and investment banks in a range of corporate transactions, including negotiating and executing public and private securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, and joint ventures. He counsels public and privately held companies on corporate governance and board issues, compliance matters, and periodic reporting.

Brian also represents investors and companies in capital financings, handling both structuring issues and the negotiation of deal documentation. He advises corporate clients across a range of industries, including life sciences, technology, aerospace and defense, business and financial services, and consumer products.

Prior to joining the firm, Brian was a partner at an AmLaw 50 firm and General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer of a publicly-traded international engineering, information technology, and staffing services company.

A partner in the Corporate Department, Krishna Veeraraghavan is a member of the firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions Group. Krishna focuses his practice on a range of corporate matters and has extensive experience advising public and private companies on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and other transactions. He also regularly advises boards of directors and special committees on activist defense, proxy contests and the full range of corporate governance matters.

Derek Windham is currently Vice President, Associate General Counsel at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, leading the Corporate, Securities, and Finance legal team.  Prior to that, he was Vice President, Securities and Executive Compensation at Del Monte Corporation, after having served as corporate counsel at the firms of Morrison & Foerster, O’Melveny & Myers, and Shearman & Sterling.  He received his J.D. From Harvard Law School in 2002, and B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1999.