Bruce Kistler is a Managing Director at Okapi Partners and is part of our Corporate Governance Team focusing on ESG compensation issues for our corporate and investor clients. In addition to providing support on proxy matters, Bruce also provides advice and guidance to clients during their annual shareholder engagement efforts.
Prior to joining Okapi, Bruce spent over 9 years with Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) Corporate Solutions. As an associate director for ISS, he led a team working with public company clients in a number of industries with a focus in real estate and insurance. Bruce and his team provided support on the design and disclosure of a broad range of corporate governance matters such as executive compensation, equity plans, and other traditional corporate governance practices.
Bruce holds a B.A in Economics from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Bill Collins, Chief Revenue Officer at Odyssey Trust Company, is a trusted advisor and business development professional with extensive experience serving clients across the capital markets, financial services, corporate, and legal industries. For over 20 years, he has been instrumental in creating superior client value and satisfaction across the corporate and capital markets landscape.  Bill comes to Odyssey from Cboe Global Markets, the world’s largest securities and derivatives exchange network. There, he was the Head of U.S. Corporate Listings. His primary responsibility was to Lead Cboe’s newly launched corporate listing initiative with the sole focus of attracting new public company listings to the US Exchange via IPO, Direct Listings and SPAC transactions.  Prior to joining Cboe Global Markets, Bill served as Director of private Equity Sales at McDermott, Will & Emery, an AM Law 50 firm.  In this role, Bill was responsible for revenue growth and client retention of the firm’s healthcare transaction services and advisory practice group.   Bill has also held senior BD positions at Sheppard Mullin and Ballard Spahr – both AM Law 100 firms.

Dana Eddis joined Corteva, a Fortune 500 agricultural technology company, in October 2019 as Associate General Counsel, Corporate and Assistant Secretary, where she leads a team responsible for governance, financial, M&A, disclosure and sustainability matters. Prior to joining Corteva, Dana was Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary at Trinseo, a private-equity backed European-based materials manufacturer spun off from The Dow Chemical Company, where she was responsible for securities, finance, commercial and governance matters. Prior to joining Trinseo in March 2015, Dana was counsel and chief compliance officer for Morningstar, Inc.’s credit rating business, where she was responsible for overseeing its compliance and regulatory advocacy activities of the credit rating business, including the implementation of its Dodd-Frank compliance program and its expansion into new rating categories. Before going in-house, Dana spent several years with a regional AmLaw 200 law firm advising on mergers, acquisitions, divestures, capital markets, securities, governance, regulatory compliance, and commercial matters. Dana received her J.D., M.B.A., and B.A. in Economics degrees from Temple University and serves on the alumni board for Temple’s economics program. Prior to attending law school, Dana spent several years at The Vanguard Group, one of the world’s largest investment firms

Henrique Canarim is Vice President, Senior Assistant General Counsel, and Assistant Corporate Secretary at Leidos, where he advises the board of directors and senior management on corporate governance, securities regulation, and strategic transactions.

He has guided Leidos through major governance transformation — modernizing its governance framework in response to evolving ESG and stakeholder expectations; delivering proxy statements twice nominated as Best Proxy; and advising on more than $1 billion in strategic transactions, including an M&A deal recognized for Best Governance Around a Corporate Transaction. His leadership has also earned him recognition as a two-time finalist for Governance Professional of the Year by Governance Intelligence.

Before joining Leidos, Henrique held senior legal roles at Capital One and practiced as a corporate and capital markets associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. He holds law degrees from Stanford Law School and the University of São Paulo.

Hope Mehlman joined Ally as the chief legal and corporate affairs officer in 2024 and is responsible for all regulatory, legal, and governance matters, and oversees the organization’s Legal, Compliance, Corporate Secretary, Government Relations, and Environmental Sustainability teams and Community Reinvestment Act program. Mehlman has more than 20 years of leadership experience in retail and commercial banking and corporate governance, including at Discover Financial Services, where she served as chief legal officer, general counsel and corporate secretary, Bank of the West, where she served as general counsel and corporate secretary, BNP Paribas USA,  where she served as corporate secretary, and Regions Financial, where among other things, she served as corporate secretary and was the company’s first chief governance officer. Mehlman serves on the board of directors of SmartBiz Bancshares. She also serves on the board of directors of the Society for Corporate Governance, where she is the Chair of the Policy Advisory Committee and is also a member of the Oversight Committee of the Best Practice Principles Group for Shareholder Voting Research Providers and is the Chair of its Nominating Committee. In 2023, Hope was inducted into the “Corporate Governance Hall of Fame” by Governance Intelligence. She was the recipient of Corporate Secretary’s 2019 Governance Professional of the Year (Large Cap) Award. Global Proxy Watch recognized Hope in its 2019 list of ten people around the world who have had a breakthrough impact in corporate governance. Hope previously served as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Council of Institutional Investors and a member of Broadridge’s Independent Steering Committee.

Mehlman holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a juris doctorate from Seton Hall University Law School, and a master of laws in Taxation from New York University School of Law. She is a frequent guest lecturer at Stanford University and a contributing author of several whitepapers.

Smita Shah: Smita Shah is the Founder and CEO of SPAAN Tech, Inc., a nationally recognized engineering and infrastructure firm trusted by city governments, airports, and federal agencies to solve complex technical challenges. She is a Professional Engineer(PE) licensed in multiple states, (LEED AP BD+C), with an extensive engineering and business education from Northwestern University, MIT and Oxford University. Named one of Chicago’s most powerful people by Crain’s and a past advisor to the White House on infrastructure policy, she brings both strategic insight and public sector experience to the table. Smita’s work sits at the intersection of data, systems, and leadership—making her a vital voice in how AI can support smarter, more resilient decision-making at scale.

Paul Sharobeem is Associate General Counsel and Assistant Secretary of Century Aluminum Company, a role he has held since 2022. In his current role, Paul oversees all of Century’s transactional and corporate governance related legal support including advising the company’s senior management and Board of Directors on legal and governance related matters, as well as direct support of Century’s securities, capital markets, corporate finance, executive compensation, M&A, commercial and sustainability functions.  Paul also leads Century’s annual shareholder outreach and engagement program. Over his nearly two-decade long career, Paul has developed a successful record of leading cross-border teams and has held roles of increasing responsibility to include oversight of additional responsibilities including compliance, commercial litigation, and legal operations.

Prior to his current role, Paul was Senior Governance Counsel at Aramco, one of the largest energy companies in the world, helping to prepare its Board policies, processes and procedures leading up to Aramco’s IPO, and then manage the Governance function immediately post IPO, which remains the largest ever. Prior to that, Paul served as Senior Corporate Counsel at Caterpillar, Inc., a leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, and prior to that, represented several multi-national corporations as outside counsel at a global law firm. Paul holds an undergraduate degree from New York University and two graduate degrees, including a juris doctor, from the University of Florida.

Maria Doughty: As the CEO of The Chicago Network, the premier organization of Chicagoland’s most influential women leaders, Maria Doughty leads with deep personal purpose. She is an ambassador for the organization and its purpose of empowering women to lead, and its mission to connect women for personal and professional growth, advance communities, and support and inspire the next generation of women. She previously served as the Director of Public Policy and Regulatory Examinations for Allstate Insurance Company. Maria brings significant industry experience in highly regulated areas, including insurance and financial services. She is a skilled regulatory compliance, governance, enterprise risk management, litigation, public policy, and government affairs strategist.

Tanya Jaeger de Foras is Chief Legal Officer, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Compliance Officer of Ingredion Incorporated, a Fortune 500 ingredient solutions provider that turns plant-based materials into value-added ingredients for food, beverage and industrial markets.  Tanya is a member of Ingredion’s executive leadership team, she supports the Company’s board of directors, and is responsible for the oversight of the Company’s global legal, corporate governance, compliance, and government, regulatory and scientific affairs functions.  She serves as a member of the Company’s ESG Executive Advisory and Executive Inclusion & Belonging committees, while leading its Cyber Security and Executive Business Integrity committees.  Tanya is also actively engaged in sustaining the Company’s people-centric growth culture, acting as the executive sponsor of EMPOWERED, the Company’s business resource group for colleagues with disabilities and previously served as sponsor of LIDER, Ingredion’s Latinx business resource group. Tanya actively mentors across the organization.

Tanya is a director of Rafhan Maize Ltd., a Ingredion controlled publicly traded operating company in Pakistan.  Tanya is deeply experienced in corporate governance, board administration and service, and global subsidiary management.  She is a member of the 2025 Board Institute class of DirectWomen, a not for profit organization that seeks to increase representation of female attorneys on corporate boards.

Before joining Ingredion, Tanya was based in Italy from 2009 to 2020, first serving as General Counsel, Europe Specialty Business Unit, and Executive Legal Director, Italy (2009-2012) at Pfizer, Inc. in Rome.  She began her in-house legal career with Pfizer as a compliance attorney at the company’s New York City global headquarters. After Pfizer, Tanya served as Deputy General Counsel and EMEA General Counsel at Luxottica SpA (now Essilor Luxottica), based in Milan (2012-2015). In 2015, Tanya joined Whirlpool Corporation as General Counsel EMEA, also based in Milan, Italy, and finally returned to the U.S. in mid 2020 as Whirlpool’s Deputy General Counsel – Global Commercial Law and Global Chief Compliance Officer.

Tanya Jaeger de Foras started her legal career in private practice at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, based in New York and Paris, France.

Tanya earned her bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (1993) and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (1998). She rowed women’s varsity crew while at Georgetown and is currently part of the Alumni Admissions Program. At Harvard, Tanya was research assistant to Professor Robert A. Mnookin of the Harvard Program on Negotiations.

Since arriving in Chicagoland in mid-2022, Tanya has been actively engaged in her community.  She serves on the advisory board of the Chicago Agricultural High School, as a trustee of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and Chicago Academy of Science, and as a director of Girls Inc. of Chicago.  She is also a member of The Chicago Network and active in the Economic Club of Chicago.

Tanya Jaeger de Foras is a German Canadian. She grew up in the Toronto, Ontario area. She speaks several languages and has lived, worked, or studied in Canada, the U.S., France, Italy, Switzerland, and the U.K. She is married and has two teenagers and a dog. In her precious spare time, Tanya enjoys the company of family and friends and is an avid reader, golfer, hiker, and traveler.

Mr. Taylor is the Vice President, Chief SEC Counsel and Secretary of American Water Works Company, Inc., where he is responsible for American Water’s securities law, corporate governance and corporate law compliance, and leads the corporate secretary function. At American Water, Mr. Taylor serves as a trusted advisor to the Board of Directors and the executive leadership team, and as a legal and strategic business partner to the company’s accounting, communications, human resources and executive compensation, finance, investor relations and treasury functions. Throughout his three-decade career, including 14 years within the in-house corporate secretary function, Mr. Taylor has advised clients in various securities, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and capital raising, corporate governance, executive compensation and business and corporate law matters.

Mr. Taylor is a frequent speaker, presenter and panelist covering topics pertinent to securities law, corporate governance and the role of corporate secretaries. Mr. Taylor received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Northwestern University and his Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Mr. Taylor is a member of the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania bars, and holds a limited license to practice as in-house counsel in New Jersey.

Michael Green is the Chief Compliance Officer at Arm, where he leads the strategic development of the company’s global ethics and compliance program, with a focus on data security, privacy, government contracts, and governance. With over a decade of leadership in compliance roles at top companies including Visa and Granite Construction, Michael brings deep expertise in navigating emerging risk areas such as digital currency and AI. A graduate of Howard University School of Law and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), he is a respected voice in ethics, investigations, and sustainable governance.

Mr. Phillips is Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Constellation Energy.  Constellation is the nation’s largest producer of carbon-free energy and leading supplier of sustainable solutions to millions of residential, public sector and business customers.

Mr. Phillips has advised boards and senior management on various topics, including risk oversight; fiduciary duties; board succession; executive compensation; SEC disclosures; and shareholder activism.

Mr. Phillips is past chair of the Corporate and Securities Law Committee of the Association of Corporate Counsel and formerly served on the board of directors of the Society for Corporate Governance.

In December 2021, Mr. Phillips obtained his National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Directorship Certification™.  He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Columbia University and a Juris Doctor degree from the Duke University School of Law.

Tricia M. Hammons is Director of Governance & Legal Services and Assistant Secretary at Murphy Oil Corporation (NYSE: MUR), with more than 20 years of experience in the oil and natural gas industry.
She leads Murphy’s annual proxy reporting process and plays a key role in board governance, executive and equity compensation, corporate sustainability reporting, SEC and NYSE compliance, entity management, and shareholder engagement. Under her leadership, Murphy’s 2024 proxy was nominated for “Best Proxy Statement – Mid Cap” by Governance Intelligence at the Corporate Governance Awards.

Tricia holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Southern Arkansas University and is a Certified Equity Professional (CEP) through Santa Clara University. She was recognized as an Outstanding Business Leader in Energy by the Houston Business Journal in 2024 and completed the FBI Citizens Academy in Houston that same year.
She is an active member of the Society for Corporate Governance, NASPP, and the Women’s Energy Network, and is deeply committed to community service through board leadership and long-standing volunteer work with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

Richard Gluckselig is an Associate General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., an S&P 500 biotechnology company headquartered in New York whose mission is to help patients with serious diseases.  Richard has nearly 20 years of experience advising companies on issues critical to their business. In his current role, Richard focuses on corporate governance, securities law compliance and financing matters, as well as strategic transactions, shareholder engagement and board support.  Previously, Richard worked as a member of the securities and public companies practice group of an international law firm in Manhattan.  Richard holds a law degree from the University of Michigan and is admitted to the practice of law in New York.

Lisa Ware-Alexander has served since March 2020 as VP, Deputy GC, Corporate Secretary and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer in the St. Louis office of Bunge Global SA, a global leader in agribusiness, food and ingredients. She leads a team responsible for corporate governance, supporting the Company’s board of directors, as well as corporate finance, securities and disclosure matters. She leads the ethics and compliance team and supports stakeholder engagement related to sustainability matters. She is responsible for legal and compliance integration efforts regarding the Company’s recently completed merger with Viterra Limited. Prior to joining Bunge, she most recently served as VP, GC, Chief CCO in the Calgary, Canada and Loveland Colorado offices of Nutrien Limited, the world’s largest supplier of crop inputs, services and solutions, and the largest retailer of agricultural products. There, she was also responsible for legal and compliance integration efforts related to the formation of Nutrien and employment and litigation matters.

Lisa has over 25 years of experience advising multinational corporations, influencing strategic direction, and delivering sound counsel on the intersection of corporate governance, ethics, M&A, global regulatory, ESG, stakeholder relations, and crisis and risk management. Lisa has extensive experience across several industries including agriculture, food & ingredients, manufacturing and financial services. Her commitment towards impacting businesses on a global scale is most evident through her expertise in ethics, ESG, M&A, and global transformations, along with her extensive global experience leading teams in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Lisa obtained a Juris Doctorate degree from Chicago Kent College of Law.

Elizabeth K. Riotte

Vice President – Deputy General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary

Avangrid, Inc.

Liz has served as Assistant Corporate Secretary for Avangrid, Inc., a leading sustainable energy company with approximately $44 billion in assets and operations in 24 states, since June 2016, and was appointed Vice President – Deputy General Counsel in April 2020. Liz oversees the corporate legal team and provides strategic advice and counsel to Avangrid’s senior management and board of directors in the areas of corporate governance, securities law compliance and public disclosures, and corporate finance. Liz was previously an associate attorney at BakerHostetler LLP in Cleveland, Ohio and Verrill Dana LLP in Portland, Maine.

Liz holds a B.A. from Tufts University and a J.D. from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law School, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Case Western Reserve Law Review and is a member of the Order of the Coif. Liz is a member of the Maine Bar and lives in Cumberland, Maine with her husband and two daughters.

Irving S. Gomez is VP, Deputy General Counsel and Secretary, for PagerDuty, Inc. Irving is responsible for M&A, securities filings with the SEC, corporate compliance, global subsidiaries, providing advice and counsel to the Board, committees, and senior management in the areas of emerging corporate governance, sustainability, stockholder outreach, securities laws, compliance, and executive compensation. Prior to joining PagerDuty, Irving was Chief Governance Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary for Intel Corporation.  While at Intel, Irving was instrumental in having Intel be an early adaptor of Proxy Access, integrating reporting, and pioneering the virtual annual meeting and stockholder forum.

Prior to joining Intel, Irving was in private practice working on a variety of matters including corporate securities, venture investments, mergers & acquisitions, and financing transactions as an associate at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. Irving earned his B.A. degree in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, his J.D. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, and an LL.M. degree in Taxation from New York University School of Law.

Matt Geekie Graybar

Senior Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel

Matt Geekie is senior vice president, secretary and general counsel for Graybar, a leading distributor of electrical, industrial, automation and connectivity products and specializes in related supply chain management and logistics services. Graybar celebrated in 2024 155 years as a company and 95 years of employee ownership. A member of Graybar’s board of directors, Geekie is responsible for corporate governance and the legal and risk management functions of the company. He sits on Graybar’s Executive, Audit, Compensation, Contributions, Disclosure, Finance, Employees’ Benefits, Branch House and Information Technologies committees. He also serves as Chairman of Graybar’s Canadian subsidiary. With Matt’s leadership, Graybar has acquired seventeen companies yielding a combined annual revenue of over $1.7 billion for Graybar.

Geekie’s broad-based legal experience includes corporate law, corporate governance, cybersecurity, mergers and acquisitions, commercial and securities law, ethics, risk management, intellectual property, product liability and export/import law. Under his leadership, Graybar achieved national recognition for excellence in corporate governance in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019.

Geekie is a native of St. Louis and received his law and undergraduate degrees from Saint Louis University. Geekie currently serves as a board Member of the Saint Louis Zoo Association and on its Nominating, and Long-Range Plan Implementation Committees; as a Member of the Saint Louis Zoo’s Marlin Perkins Society; as a Member of the Board of The Oasis Institute and on its Executive, Finance and Advancement Committees; and as a Member of the Greater St. Louis Inc. Government Relations Council. He is also a Member of the Board of CK Power, a Member of the St. Louis/Chicago Regional FM Global Advisory Board and a Member of the Board of the Missouri Law Institute. He is past chairman of the Boards of Directors of the St. Louis Community Foundation, the Saint Louis Zoo Association and the Oasis Institute.

Dottie Schindlinger is Executive Director of the Diligent Institute, the modern governance think tank and global research arm of Diligent Corporation. In her role, Dottie directs the Institute’s thought leadership on corporate governance and related topics. She also serves as a lead spokesperson for both Diligent Institute and Diligent Corporation, giving dozens of presentations to boards and executives at events around the globe. Dottie’s work has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and multiple governance and technology publications. She is co-author of the book, Governance in the Digital Age: A Guide for the Modern Corporate Board Director and she co-hosts the show The Corporate Director Podcast.

Dottie brings over twenty years’ experience in governance-related roles, including serving as a director, officer, committee chair, senior executive, governance consultant and trainer for private, public, and nonprofit boards. She was a founding team member of the tech start-up BoardEffect, a board management software provider focused on healthcare and nonprofit boards, acquired by Diligent in 2016. She served as the Vice Chair of the Board of the Alice Paul Institute until April 2020, and is a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar on Corporate Governance. Dottie is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and lives in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her husband, Ron.

Matt is a Partner in PwC’s global entity governance and compliance business, leading global Company Secretarial and Governance engagements, forming part of PwC’s global EGC practice with teams in 160+ countries.
With over 20 years of experience he has worked with global businesses to help navigate regulatory change; redesign legal entity structures to support international expansion and align with business wide transformation; and reduce the cost of compliance through governance function redesign and the creation of digital platforms / assets to mitigate risk and manage compliance.
He is responsible for the relationship of several Fortune 100 and PE backed clients. More recently he has led large scale compliance projects working with global organisations on the need to comply across Europe with new regulations focused on improving transparency and reporting and has been the Lead Partner on organisation wide governance reviews as part of Deal to Regulatory readiness programmes.

Liz is a trusted industry leader for securities lawyers and other advisors. She brings nearly 20 years of experience in corporate and securities law, executive compensation and investor relations. As a senior strategic advisor at Cooley, Liz helps identify the latest issues affecting public and late-stage private companies, so that Cooley clients receive practical guidance that is both forward-looking and grounded in business realities.

Over the course of her career, Liz has counseled boards, executives, chief legal officers, corporate secretaries and compliance personnel on the full range of securities law and corporate matters, including sensitive board matters, Securities and Exchange Commission and stock exchange-based disclosure issues, stock exchange listing compliance, investor communication and voting trends, insider trading and Rule 10b5-1 plans, executive compensation issues and executive succession matters. Additionally, she has helped companies prepare to go public, navigate public and private offerings of equity and debt, implement activism defense measures, respond to shareholder proposals, and manage board and committee roles and procedures.

In addition, Liz serves as a senior editor for TheCorporateCounsel.net, CompensationStandards.com and other CCRcorp resources. Through CCRcorp, Liz provides practical guidance to 88% of the publicly held Fortune 100, 90% of the Am Law 100, and countless smaller and mid-sized companies and firms. In her prior role as managing editor at CCRcorp, Liz played a key role in improving a variety of corporate metrics, and she incorporates this business perspective in providing strategic legal and compliance insights.

Liz is a frequent author and speaker on securities and corporate law topics, with articles appearing in publicationssuch as Bloomberg Law, Business Law Today, Law360, The Corporate Board and The Corporate Governance Advisor.

Education

University of Iowa College of Law
JD, Order of the Coif, 2006

University of Northern Iowa
BA, summa cum laude, Purple & Old Gold Award, 2003

Ron Schneider is Director, Corporate Governance Services for Donnelley Financial Solutions (DFIN). He is responsible for providing thought leadership on emerging corporate governance, proxy, sustainability and other disclosure issues.  Over the past four decades, Ron has advised and assisted senior management, the C-suite and boards of public companies of all sizes, industries and stages of growth to establish effective investor engagement programs, facing investor activism, and with challenging proxy solicitations involving corporate governance, compensation and control issues.

During his career, he has managed more than 1,600 proxy solicitations, 200 tender or exchange offers and 30 proxy contests, with his proxy fight clients succeeding in over 70% of such situations.

Ron’s prior experience includes three years at investor relations agency The Financial Relations Board (FRB), three years at AST Phoenix Advisors and nine years at BNY Mellon, providing thought leadership on regulatory changes and emerging best practices. Earlier in his career, Ron held increasingly senior positions at major proxy solicitation firms Morrow & Company, D.F. King and Georgeson & Company, where he served on its first Board of Directors.  Ron earned a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University.

Sarah has extensive experience advising companies on a broad range of corporate, securities, transactional and governance matters. Public companies turn to her as a trusted adviser with respect to Securities and Exchange Commission and stock exchange reporting, disclosure and compliance, corporate governance, financing and strategic matters.

Sarah represents clients in a variety of business and financial transactions. She has significant experience representing companies and underwriters in equity, equity-linked, debt and other securities offerings, including public offerings, private placements, 144A offerings, registered direct offerings, private investment in public equity (PIPE) offerings, secondary offerings, at-the-market offerings and rights offerings. Additionally, Sarah has advised public and private companies on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, collaborations and other strategic transactions. Her industry expertise ranges from life sciences and technology to professional services and consumer products industries, among others.

Sarah also writes and speaks on securities law topics. While in law school, she was an articles editor for the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy, executive editor of the Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum, and a staff writer for the Duke Law & Technology Review.

Prior to joining Cooley, Sarah worked at WilmerHale and Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

Education

Duke University School of Law
JD, cum laude

Duke University School of Law
LLM, International and Comparative Law, cum laude

Brown University
AB, Latin & Classics and Modern American History, magna cum laude

Michael Vogele is a multilingual professional with 25 years of experience providing consultative services on the design and disclosure of governance and compensation topics within global corporate filings. His expertise lies in analyzing executive and director compensation structures, evaluating governance practices, and modeling proxy voting trends.

Prior to joining Alliance Advisors, Mike worked for four years at ISS Corporate Solutions (ICS), where he advised global issuers on executive compensation, equity plan design, governance ratings, and shareholder engagement. Mike also worked for several years at Glass Lewis, leading their engagement outreach in North America & Europe. Preceding this, he was a founding partner of IVOX, a European-based proxy research company, which was acquired by Glass Lewis in 2015. Mike began his career at ISS in their European Research Team until his departure in 2006. Based on these experiences, Mike has a comprehensive understanding of ISS guidelines, Glass Lewis policies, global asset management stewardship guidelines, and global pension funds voting policies.

Chris serves as AIG Senior Vice President & Corporate Secretary.  In this role, she is responsible for leading the legal teams responsible for investments, mergers & acquisitions, capital market transactions, securities disclosure and corporate governance.  Chris previously served as AIG Associate General Counsel, Separation Initiatives and as Corebridge Financial, Inc. Chief Corporate Counsel & Corporate Secretary.

Chris joined AIG in 2021 from Equitable Holdings where she served in various leadership roles on the legal team, including Head of the Corporate Practice Group from 2010 to 2021.  At Equitable, Chris led the legal team responsible for the company’s initial public offering. Chris began her legal career at Coopers & Lybrand.

Chris holds a BA in Economics from Duke University, a JD from Georgetown University Law Center and a LLM in Taxation from New York University.

Beth Sasfai is a partner in Cooley’s public companies group and leads the firm’s ESG & sustainability advisory practice. She regularly advises boards of directors and management on a wide range of corporate governance, disclosure and regulatory compliance matters – including corporate governance policy and trends, shareholder engagement and activism, shareholder proposals and proxy season matters, and environmental, social and governance (ESG). She is a seasoned professional with a distinguished career spanning 20+ years in a fortune 20 company, which positions her as a trusted advisor to boards and executive teams.
Beth closely monitors and advises clients on evolving best practices and on corporate governance and ESG proposals put forth by Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission, stock exchanges, and other stakeholders. Beth brings a wealth of experience in guiding US and international clients through the complex ESG regulatory landscape, including reporting and disclosure controls, engaging with stakeholders, and operationalizing governance and risk management processes.
In addition to her public companies practice, Beth counsels companies of al market caps across a broad spectrum of industries, helping to integrate sustainability strategies, oversight, and risk management principles into the life cycle of early-stage growth companies and pre-initial public offering companies to facilitate their evolution into large, publicly traded entities. In advising companies on ways to integrate sustainability principles into business strategy and operations early on, Beth helps companies build resilience, enhance stakeholder relationships and future-proof their operations.
Before joining Cooley, Beth was Verizon’s chief ESG officer and senior vice president of corporate governance. She also served as a management liaison to Verizon’s board of directors’ corporate governance and policy committee, which was charged with overseeing sustainability, governance, public policy and reputational risk. Prior to joining Verizon, Beth practiced in the corporate and litigation groups of prominent New York City law firms.

Education
University of Pennsylvania
JD, 1997

Steve Wade is the head of event content at IR Media Group. As a content researcher, conference producer, and event host for IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence, Steve is responsible for gathering intelligence on public companies’ most significant global issues. Steve’s team develops events that promote excellence in investor relations, governance, and sustainability for issuers and investors.

Prior to Corporate Secretary, Steve’s background was in corporate social responsibility and responsible investment. During his time at Ethical Corporation (now Reuters Events), Steve launched the ESG symposium; an event focused on connecting the socially responsible investment community with corporate sustainability leaders at listed companies. Steve was a judge for the Deloitte Green Frog Awards, celebrating the best corporate reporting in Eastern Europe. Steve also presented research at the Global Sustainable Event Summit in London and has spoken about extra-financial reporting with the United Nations Global Compact, the World Bank, and the Polish Ministry of Finance.

Steve has a BSC in Event Management, is a member of working groups toward improved practices in international event management, and enjoys swimming, rugby and outdoor pursuits in his spare time.