About The Speakers
Howard Brod Brownstein
President of Brownstein Corporation
Howard Brod Brownstein, CTP, is a nationally-known turnaround and restructuring professional, and regularly provides programs for Women in the Boardroom. He is President of Brownstein Corporation, which provides turnaround management and advisory services, as well as investment banking, fiduciary services, litigation consulting, investigations and valuation services. He regularly serves on the boards of directors of public and private companies, and currently serves on the boards of: P&F Industries (Nasdaq: PFIN) where he chairs the Nominating/Governance and Strategic Planning & Risk Assessment Committees, Renew Financial, where he serves as chair of the Risk Committee, and Merakey, a nonprofit with over 10,000 employees. He is a Certified Turnaround Professional, and also an NACD Board Leadership Fellow and Immediate Past President and Board Chair of the NACD Philadelphia Chapter. He has authored ninety articles and textbook chapters, is a Contributing Editor at two publications, and is a regular guest-lecturer at Harvard Business School, Wharton, NYU and elsewhere. He received JD and MBA degrees at Harvard, and B.S. (Wharton) and B.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
RHONDA L. BRAUER
President and Founder of RLB Governance LLC
Rhonda Brauer is an experienced S&P 500 executive, with an entrepreneurial mindset and risk management experience. She has leveraged her senior executive background and governance expertise to spearhead successful company-investor initiatives, focusing on ESG and risk management issues at public companies, across a wide range of industries. Rhonda continues to serve her communities as the founder and president of RLB Governance. She is a uniquely qualified advisor to public companies and institutional investors, helping her clients to strategically evaluate and respond to enterprise risks and opportunities associated with rapidly evolving ESG and company-shareholder engagement issues.
Rhonda’s corporate experience is firmly grounded in having served on the senior management teams at The New York Times Company (NYT Co.) and Georgeson (a leading proxy solicitation firm), where she grew the ESG consulting business, advising more than 70 boards and C-Suites on effective shareholder and proxy advisory firm engagement and communication; and doubled the number of new clients and grew revenues by over 400%. At NYT Co. she leveraged her significant corporate, M&A, investor relations and securities law experience to provide strategic business and risk management support at a family-controlled public company, amid generational and technological changes. On the investor side, Rhonda spearheaded the Boardroom Accountability Project 2.0 for the New York City Pension Funds, emphasizing board quality, diversity and refreshment and significantly changing how board experience and expertise are presented to company stakeholders. She also strategically collaborated with different investor coalitions to lead or co-lead campaigns, including successfully launching and managing the Climate Lobbying Initiative for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR).
Sheila Carnicelli
Financial Services Executive and Board practitioner
Sheila Carnicelli built a career at organizations experiencing significant transformation, most recently in a global role as Managing Director in the financial and operational risk control team at UBS Investment Bank. While at UBS, Ms. Carnicelli held several roles designed to introduce new control regimes when the bank experienced material merger or acquisition activity, including the merger of Swiss Bank and UBS in 1997, the acquisition of Paine Webber in 2001, as well as other activity directed by the Swiss National Bank. In addition to building and growing global teams, Ms. Carnicelli assisted in pioneering the first diversity committee at UBS in the Americas. Sheila’s early formation was in her career at KPMG LLP, where she rose to Senior Manager in the financial services practice, with responsibilities for overseeing the delivery of advisory and attestation services to a large portfolio of multinational investment banking and brokerage clients.
Sheila’s global operational roles were complemented by her board work at several operating entities at UBS. She has also served several sizable non-profits, at the national and local level, where she has chaired audit, investment, and executive search committees, as well as served on finance and governance committees. Her committee responsibilities have included board governance strategy, endowment investment strategy and oversight, budgetary strategy and oversight, and executive compensation design. While serving as chair, Sheila was responsible for the hiring of a new audit firm, a new investment advisor, and a CEO. As investment committee chair for two boards, Sheila led the strategy to migrate the respective organizations to an outsourced Chief Investment Officer (“OCIO”) model and advised the staff in its implementation. Sheila currently serves as Vice Chair for a digital content healthcare organization and is an advisor to a boutique management consulting firm that specializes in financial and operational transformation.
Sue Buchanan
Corporate Board Director / Audit Committee Chair
Independent corporate board director and c-suite executive with more than 30 years of experience guiding organizations through capital restructurings, acquisitions,
divestitures, strategic planning, leadership development and risk management (ERM and ESG).
Sue brings broad expertise as a strong strategic and financial business partner in multinational private family-owned and large public and private equity companies across a variety of industries including manufacturing, chemical and transportation asset leasing.
Sue is currently serving as a board director and audit committee chair for Kingsbury Inc., Zonatherm Products Inc. and ThermFlo Inc., and Neuco Inc., and is an advisory board member of The Morton Arboretum. She previously served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Sasser Family Holdings Inc. and chief financial officer and treasurer of Carus Corporation. Additional experience includes divisional chief financial officer at Nalco Water (An Ecolab Company). She is a member of Women in the Boardroom, Private Directors Association and Chicago Finance Exchange. A graduate of Elmhurst University, she also holds an MBA from Northern Illinois University.
