About the Speakers
Howard Brownstein
President, The Brownstein Corporation; Director, P&F Industries (NasdaqGS: PFIN), Merakey, NACD Philadelphia Chapter
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.
Anne DelSanto
Independent Board Director
With over 25 years of experience in the technology industry, Anne has a long history of transforming organizations, cultivating strong identities to foster high performance and results. She spent the last seven years of her executive operator career at Salesforce.com, arguably the most successful and influential SaaS company in the world. Her position running the fast growing $2.5 billion Platform-as-a-Service business there gave her an excellent purview into the inner-workings of cloud and SaaS business models. She also brings a strong combination of technical and customer-facing skills to the table. Prior to this role at Salesforce, she spent her career in solution engineering leadership roles, listening and responding to customer requirements with innovative technology and business solutions at IBM, Oracle and Salesforce.com.
Currently Anne serves on the board of directors of three public companies. Juniper Networks (JNPR), an S&P 500 company that provides high performance networks and cybersecurity solutions to cloud service providers and enterprise companies where she serves on the nominating and governance committee. New Relic (NEWR), a SaaS observability platform, built to help engineers create more perfect software where she serves on the compensation and chairs the nominating & governance committee. Advanced Energy Industries (AEIS), which engineers the world’s most advanced power supplies for global semiconductor and industrial manufacturers where Anne serves on the compensation and nominating & governance committees. She also serves on the board of two private companies. Axonius, a hyper growth cybersecurity asset company and Uncommon Purpose, an incubation software company. Further, Anne is also a limited partner at Stage2Capital and Operator Collective venture funds.
A lifelong learner, Anne holds a Bachelor of Science in mathematics with a concentration in computer science from St. John’s University, and a Master of Science in administrative studies from Boston College. She most recently attended the Director’s College at Stanford University Law School, with particular emphasis on governance.
Deb Elam
Independent Director, Leadership Development, Diversity & Inclusion Expert
Deb Elam is a visionary senior executive and one of the country’s foremost experts in Leadership, Diversity & Inclusion. She is the President and CEO of Corporate Playbook™, a company that provides leaders with strategic direction to elevate diversity, inclusion, philanthropy, and culture in the workplace. In addition to Corporate Playbook™, Deb is also Executive Vice-Chairwoman of CNEXT, a highly-diverse global community for leadership exchange, development, and advancement of high-impact leaders. Deb helped to design CNEXT’s Emerging Leaders Forum, which helps to develop women and people of color who are in the pipeline at the director/senior director level.
Deb was GE’s first-ever black female corporate officer. Her role as Global Chief Diversity Officer placed her in the top 185 of 300,000 employees. In Deb’s decorated thirty-year career at General Electric (GE), she led the company’s philanthropic efforts through the GE Foundation’s $130 million dollar budget and thousands of GE Volunteers, to tackle some of the world’s most critical challenges in health, education and skill attainment.
Deb is a powerful connector who elevates those around her and has received numerous accolades, including 50 Most Powerful Women in Philanthropy from Inside Philanthropy, Women of Excellence Legacy Award from the National Association for Female Executives, and Women of Power Award from the National Urban League.
Deb received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, from Louisiana State University and a Master of Public Administration, from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She has also been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York.
She serves as an independent director at DJE Holdings (Edelman) www.edelman.com and ShotSpotter SSTI (NASDAQ), where she chairs the compensation committee. She is also on the board of directors at the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute; the Louisiana State University (LSU) Foundation and was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment (ACDDE). Deb is also a member of the National Black MBA Association, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated and The Links, Incorporated. Deb has two young adult daughters. She and her husband reside in New Orleans.
Meghan Juday
Speaker, Author, Advocate
Meghan Juday understands how family businesses thrive and survive and makes it her mission to share this know-how with the business community. The enthusiastic champion for family businesses draws on her experience as a fourth-generation leader and Chairman of the Board at IDEAL Industries, a family business in operation for over 105 years. Meghan cut her teeth in the family business and further honed her skills as a business analyst and project manager at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).
As the IDEAL Family Council Chair for 14 years, Meghan increased family engagement and mitigated risk. She reimagined family roles within the corporation, creating a family development and education program based on family governance and director
development. The program gives family members equal access to leadership and director roles with selection based on merit. Meghan has served on the IDEAL board since 2008, chairing the Nominating and Governance Committee for five years. She was named Vice Chairman in 2018 and became Chairman in 2020. Her leadership role at IDEAL gave Meghan a unique platform to advance family businesses as a thought leader. In her career, the highly sought-after public speaker and transformational leader:
Created a robust family business education program as director of the family business center at St. Joseph’s University
Launched the Family Business Strategy Group, a family business consulting firm that supports strong stewardship, leadership development, and smooth succession from one generation to the next
Worked with families to develop and implement family governance and family director development programs and establish or revamp their corporate boards
Helped develop the Loyola Family Business Center’s Family Business Stewardship and Governance Institute
The transformational leader and published author serves on the Brightstar Capital Partners Advisory Council, sits on the editorial board and is a contributor to the NACD Private Company Directorship, sits on the editorial board for Family Business
Magazine, and sits on the Private Directors Advisory Board. Meghan writes for Private Company Director, Family Business Magazine, and other publications. Most notably, Meghan founded The Lodis Forum, an international peer group of female board chairs, vice-chairs, and lead directors. Her consultant work focuses on family and corporate governance. Meghan lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two boys.
