November Breakfast Forum

This program is co-sponsored by Women Corporate Directors Foundation (Boston).

The compensation committee’s role has grown more complex in the face of regulatory and compliance requirements and increasing pressure to demonstrate pay for performance. Join us as we discuss the trends that will matter most to help guide your strategic priorities for 2018:

1. Getting your CEO pay ratio disclosure right
2. The committee’s role in socially-responsible corporate issues (equal pay, having the right culture/brand tied to compensation, paying fairly, etc.)
3. Establishing the right short- and long-term incentive plans/metrics
4. The evolving role of the compensation committee

Our panel will discuss how to balance the compensation committee’s annual calendar of activities with its emerging new charter to have oversight of leadership and talent development and to establish a link between incentives and innovation.

Our Panelists:

Jean Mixer serves on the board of directors of NxStage (NXTM), a $2B publicly-traded med tech company, on both the Audit and Compensation Committees (since 2012). She served on the board of the Cambridge Trust Company (CATC) (2006-14), where she was Chair of the Compensation Committee. She is VP, Strategy and Digital Health at Boston Children’s Hospital where she launched and co leads the Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator, Precision Medicine and telehealth services. She was formerly a partner at The Boston Consulting Group (12 years), CEO at mixerconsulting (8 years), and officer at JP Morgan. She is an overseer and chaired a board committee for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. She has worked across the restructuring healthcare market including providers, payers, med tech, pharmaceuticals, and pharmacy/PBMs. She has worked on digital disruption in financial services, retail, and healthcare. Ms. Mixer has over 25 years of public company experience.

Don Nolan currently serves on the Board of Apogee Enterprises (NASDAQ:APOG), a $1B manufacturer of glass solutions for commercial building and framing markets. He is the former CEO of Kennametal (NYSE:KMT), a $2B industrial leader delivering productivity through tooling and wear solutions to customers in the aerospace, earthworks and energy markets. Prior to Kennametal, Don was President of the $4.0B Materials Group at Avery Dennison (NYSE:AVY). Previously, he served in leadership positions with Valspar Corporation, Loctite Corporation and General Electric. Don currently serves on the advisory board at the University of Michigan School of Engineering.

Cynthia Cohen, President of consulting firm Strategic Mindshare, is an experienced public and private company board member. Over the course of her career she has served on 10 public company boards and has chaired Audit, Compensation and Nominating and Governance committees. She is a qualified financial expert and is a member of the NACD faculty teaching good governance sessions for them. Cynthia has extensive experience in business strategy, marketing, branding, digital and e-commerce. She consults to retailers, consumer brands, media companies, digital start-ups, and technology companies. Cynthia advises several venture capital funds and recently founded Downtown Digital Salons.

Our Moderator:

Melissa Means is a Managing Director with Pearl Meyer with over 20 years of experience in executive and board compensation. She assists clients in designing, implementing and communicating incentive plans and total compensation strategies, pay for performance alignment and shareholder outreach.  Melissa works closely with boards and management teams in addressing governance practices, executive transitions/succession planning and aligning pay with business strategies. As a part of regularly being in the boardroom, Melissa also provides context to boards on group behavioral dynamics and interactions among the board and with management. Melissa is a speaker and writer on executive and non-employee director compensation. She is a member, author, and speaker for Women Corporate Directors and the National Association of Corporate Directors (New England and National), where she also served on the Program Committee. She was co-author of the WCD Thought Leadership Reports in 2014 and 2017. She is a member of The Boston Club, served on the Corporate Board Committee and chaired the Corporate Advisory Board Committee. And was recently named to the Agenda Compensation 100, a listing of top board-ready professionals who make terrific compensation committee members.