Innovation Governance for Directors: Faculty

Innovation Governance for Directors is the only global program that explores the topic of innovation through the lens of a board director and how their roles, responsibilities and duties intersect with the challenges and opportunities posed by digital transformation.  The program faculty have broad international experience in the areas of digital disruption, leadership, ethics and cybersecurity and will provide insights and tools to help expand director skill sets in this unique multi-day program.

 

Dr. Michael Hartmann
Principal
The Directors College

Dr. Michael Hartmann is Principal of The Directors College, where he leads program development and accreditation, and is a member of the College’s faculty team. Dr. Hartmann is also a Professor of Human Resource Management at the DeGroote School of Business, Executive Director of DeGroote’s EMBA in Digital Transformation and Co-Director of McMaster’s Health Leadership Academy. Prior to joining DeGroote, Dr. Hartmann was Deputy Dean, Manchester Business School (2008-2013) and Assistant Dean, Rotman School of Management (1998-2007). While at Rotman, he led the School’s globally ranked Executive Education centre and contributed to the development of its national portfolio of governance programs.

Dr. Hartmann has over 20 years of professional experience designing and delivering educational consulting services to organizations in Asia, Europe, the UAE, and the Americas. He has taught degree courses and executive workshops in the areas of corporate governance, leadership, strategy, innovation, design thinking, group decision-making, cross-cultural studies and change management.  Recent teaching and coaching assignments include work for Novartis, Ziraat Bank, Thales Group, JCB, Omantel, Al-Futtaim Group, Manchester Airports Group, British Sky Broadcasting, Sky Betting & Gaming, Dentsu Aegis Network, NBCUniversal, Credit Union Executives Society, SOCAN and BDO Canada.

He has also facilitated workshops, forums and webinars on a range of governance and leadership topics. Recent examples include: Innovation Governance for Board Directors – Facilitated courses on the board’s role in supporting business innovation; Building High Performance Boards – facilitated workshops for directors and executives on governance best practice approaches; Perspectives on Board Diversity – moderated webinars and panels on the representation of women on Canadian boards; The Changing Roles and Responsibilities of UK Directors – moderated
roundtable discussions with the UK Institute of Corporate Directors on the role of best-practice governance codes in shaping board processes and; Diversity of Thought & Unity of Practice: Asking the Right Questions in the Boardroom – facilitated workshops for NHS Foundation Trust board members focused on improving group decision making dynamics in the boardroom.

Dr. Hartmann is a past and present member of various professional associations and boards in Europe and North America and is a Visiting Professional Fellow, Manchester Business School. He is a member of the Stanford Digital Cities Consortium and the Australian Institute of Company Directors Technology Governance and Innovation Panel. His work on corporate governance and directors education has been published in academic journals as well as the professional press.

Dr. Hartmann has an undergraduate honors degree from the University of Western Ontario, graduate degrees from the University of Toronto and York University and a doctoral degree from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland with a focus on corporate governance.

 

Rob Burgess
Director & Chair of the Compensation Committee
NVIDIA

Robert K. Burgess has served as an independent investor and board member to technology companies since 2005. He was chief executive officer from 1996 to 2005 of Macromedia, Inc., a provider of internet and multimedia software, which was acquired by Adobe Systems Incorporated; he also served from 1996 to 2005 on its board of directors, as chairman of its board of directors from 1998 to 2005 and as executive chairman for his final year.

Previously, he held key executive positions from 1984 to 1991 at Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), a graphics and computing company; from 1991 to 1995, served as chief executive officer and a board member of Alias Research, Inc., a publicly traded 3D software company, until its acquisition by SGI; and resumed executive positions at SGI during 1996. Mr. Burgess was a director of IMRIS Inc., a provider of image guided therapy solutions, from 2010 until 2013, of Adobe from 2005 until 2019, and of Rogers Communications, Inc., a communications and media company, from 2016 until 2019. He holds a BCom degree from McMaster University. He joined the NVIDIA board in 2011.

 

John Dalla Costa
Founding Director
Centre for Ethical Orientation

John Dalla Costa, the founder of The Centre for Ethical Orientation, works with boards, senior executives, and strategic planners to develop the principles and practical sensibilities for achieving the ethical excellence that is now fundamental to business excellence. Mr. Dalla Costa has authored six books including – The Ethical Imperative – Why Moral Leadership Is Good Business (1998), Working Wisdom – The Ultimate Value in the New Economy (1995), and Meditations on Business (1991). His articles have also appeared in The Financial Post and Report on Business.

Mr. Dalla Costa’s client list has included such well-known names as General Mills, Petro-Canada, UNICEF, Health Canada, Procter & Gamble, Shell, Sony, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Bell Canada, and Hewlett-Packard to name a few.

He has served on the Board of Directors of CIBC Visa credit card business, and CMI Inc. a large Canadian mortgage company. Mr. Dalla Costa is widely sought after to speak both domestically and internationally to a variety of associations and industry groups on such topics as ethical leadership, corporate responsibility and organizational trust.

Before starting his new vocation as a writer and teacher, Mr. Dalla Costa spent sixteen years in advertising and marketing, including nine as CEO of his own company. He is a graduate of the Owner/President Management Program, Harvard Business School, earned a Master of Divinity at Regis College (University of Toronto) and teaches ethics and social responsibility in the MBA Program at the Schulich School for Business.

 

Liselotte Engstam
Non-executive Chair and Board Member
Independent

Liselotte Engstam is a non-executive chair and board member at three listed and two private multinational companies, with a background from international leadership positions in the technology industry. She also serves on INSEAD Directors Network Board and as advisor to European Commission on Digitalization and Corporate Governance.

As the founder of Digoshen, with an international board network, she coaches chairs and board members and hosts the podcast ”Exploring Leaders”. She engages in academic research on boards leadership of innovation and AI and is the co-author of the book “AI Leadership for Boards” and of two forthcoming research-based books on Boards Innovation Governance, and on Modern Chair Practices.

She has an MSc in Engineering and Sustainability, is board certified IDP-C from INSEAD and a fellow at the Institute of Coaching, Harvard Medical School. She is trained as Climate Reality Leader by Al Gore and certified by CDSB on Governance of climate-related risks and opportunities.

 

Lloyd Komori, C.Dir., H.R.C.C.C., A.C.C.
Professional Board Director, Former CRO and Cyber Risk Authority
Independent

Lloyd is highly regarded for his leadership and leading edge views on risk management and board director oversight of risk. His leadership is derived in large part from his deep expertise and diverse experience gathered over a thirty-five year career during which he designed and implemented enterprise wide risk management and corporate governance frameworks, processes and systems for numerous global organizations. He has hands-on C-suite experience leading teams responsible for measuring and managing all forms of financial, operational, environment and technology related risks in a number of industry sectors.

He has published a number of papers and articles on risk management and risk culture, is a frequent public speaker on risk, governance and more recently cyber exposure, in addition to serving on a number of global advisory boards and committees.

His practical management experience, technical expertise and thought leadership has led to him serving on a number of public and private sectors boards including the ETFO Employee Life Health Trust, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System Administration Corporation, the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Ted Rogers School of Business, the Toronto Central Local Health Integration Network, the Strategic Risk Council and the Abilities Centre of Durham Region.

In 2019, Lloyd completed a certificate program on Artificial intelligence at MIT’s Sloan School of Business following the completion of a Professional Master’s Diploma in Enterprise Information Security, Data Protection and Privacy in 2017 at Ryerson University. His graduate thesis focused on the use of artificial intelligence in cyber risk management applications. He has been awarded all three of the board director certifications awarded by the DeGroote School of Business of McMaster University and graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts in double majors in Political Science and Economics.

 

Barry Libert
CEO
AIMatters, Inc.

Barry is a board member, CEO advisor and platform leader. As board member and CEO advisor, he helps CEO’s and private equity firms create exponential growth and value by transforming their SaaS only companies into multi-sided revenue businesses. Consequently, the combination of three distinct revenues sources – SaaS plus seller marketplaces plus AI-based data assets – generate outsized returns.

Barry has started, advised and sold a number of platform companies. Currently, Barry is a board member/CEO advisor for a number of PE sponsored private companies and one public company. In addition to these companies, Barry has advised the CEO’s of many large companies including Neiman Marcus, Barrick Gold, iRobot, Salesforce.org, Deloitte, GE Healthcare and ATT on their digital transformations. He also served as a Senior Fellow and Board Member of the SEI Center at Wharton responsible for platform and network business research.

As a leader in AI powered platform business models, Barry has co-authored 6 books, including, The Network Imperative, published by HBR, and created a complete course on Edx called AI for Leaders. He also coauthored 1,500 articles for the WSJ, NYT, HBR, MIT, and Forbes, and 20+ e-books. In addition, Barry has delivered more than 500+ keynote
speeches to 50,000+ people globally and has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox News Network, NPR, and Facebook Live.

Barry began his career with McKinsey & Company, was a partner and co-leader of Global Research and Innovation at Arthur Andersen, and co-led John Hancock’s $2B Real Estate Equity Investment arm. Barry is a graduate of Tufts University (BA, Magna Cum Laude) and Columbia University (MBA, Beta Gamma Sigma). He is married (37+ years) and has
two grown sons and a daughter-in-law, all of whom he loves and adores. He resides in Sherborn, Massachusetts and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

 

Jessica Nordlander
COO
Thoughtexchange

Jessica is a technology executive with an MSc in Applied IT, an XGoogler and recently named ‘Sweden’s Most Innovative Leader’. As COO at Thoughtexchange, one of Canada’s fastest growing software companies, she tries to operationalize awesomeness. Her career journey prior to that has included leading impressive change and growth in a number of multinational companies; as Chief Digital Officer for global travel group STS Education; Head of Business Development at Google and Managing Director in Stockholm, Dubai and Vancouver for SaaS growth wonder Meltwater.

Jessica serves on the board of several tech start-ups and contributes to Forbes.com as a member of the Forbes Technology Council (an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives).

 

Tim O’Brien
GM AI Programs, AI Policy and Ethics Advocacy and Evangelism
Microsoft

Tim O’Brien leads Ethical AI Advocacy at Microsoft and is responsible for programs to drive and promote responsible development and use of technology, inclusive of public policy and the ethics of artificial intelligence. As part of this role, Tim conducts research focused on ethical use of AI across geographies and cultures.

A career technology evangelist, Tim led the Global Communications group for Microsoft, managing communications strategy and operations in over 90 countries around the world, and the Platform Strategy team, where he was responsible for technical evangelism to drive developer adoption of Microsoft platforms and services. Before joining Microsoft in 2003, Tim worked as an engineer, a marketer and a consultant at both startups and Fortune 500 companies.

He has over 25 years of experience in the tech industry and is a frequent speaker on AI ethics and responsible use of technology, and has been featured in international media, including the Wall Street Journal, MIT Sloan Management Review, and NPR.

Tim has a BS in engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He is currently pursuing a Master of Jurisprudence degree at the University of Washington School of Law, studying cyberlaw and public policy.

 

Carole Piovesan
Co-founder/Partner
INQ Law

Carole is managing partner at INQ Law, focusing her practice on privacy, cyber readiness, data governance and artificial intelligence (AI) risk management. She regularly counsels clients on a wide range of matters related to privacy, cyber readiness and breach response, data governance, ethical AI and responsible innovation. Prior to founding INQ Law, Carole was co-lead of the national Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Management group at McCarthy Tétrault. She has represented clients before all levels of court in Ontario as well as at the Supreme Court of Canada.
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Carole plays an active role in shaping data law, policy and standards in Canada and globally. She is the co-chair of the federal government’s Exposure Notification application. She also co-chairs the data governance working group for the Data Governance Standardization Collaborative at the Standards Council of Canada. She is a member of the Data Governance Working Group for the Global Partnership on AI, as well as an advisor to several AI start-ups.
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In 2018, Carole was appointed by the federal Minister of Innovation to serve as one of six Digital Leaders in the national data and digital transformation consultations. In this role, she led consultations with businesses, academics, civil society and industry associations to inform the first national Digital Charter. Announced on May 21, 2019, the Digital Charter has led to significant proposed reforms to Canada’s federal private sector privacy law.
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Carole regularly teaches, speaks and writes on topics related to data law and AI. She is also co-editing a book on AI and law that will be published by Thomson Reuters in 2021.

 

Robert E. Siegel
Lecturer in Management
Stanford Graduate School of Business

Robert Siegel is a Lecturer in Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he currently teaches five courses: The Industrialist’s Dilemma, Systems Leadership, Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation, Strategies of Effective Product Management and Entrepreneurial Finance. He has led primary research and written cases on Google, Charles Schwab, Daimler, AB InBev, Box, Stripe, Target, AngelList, 23andMe, C3.ai, Majid Al Futtaim, Tableau, PayPal, SurveyMonkey, Medium, Autodesk, Minted, Zuora, Axel Springer and Michelin, amongst others.

He is also a General Partner at XSeed Capital and a Venture Partner at Piva. He sits on the Board of Directors of Foxeye Robotics and Avochato, and he led investments in Sparta Science, Zooz (acquired by PayU of Naspers – NPN), Hive, Lex Machina (acquired by LexisNexis of the RELX Group – RELX), CirroSecure (acquired by Palo Alto Networks – PANW), The League, Trove, Teapot (acquired by Stripe), Smart Coffee Technology, Pixlee and SIPX (acquired by ProQuest).

Robert is a Member of the Supervisory Board of TTTech Auto AG and is Chairman of the Strategic Advisory Board for TTTech Computertechnik AG in Vienna, Austria. He is a Member of the Industry Advisory Boards for Here Technologies and Tulco, and was on the Board of SmartDrive Systems (acquired by Omnitracs) for over 14 years. He is the Co-President Emeritus of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, an alumni association that fosters relationships to strengthen the Stanford startup community, and has co-authored several articles for the Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, and is a Wall Street Journal Startup Guru. He is a frequent contributor to Fortune, TechCrunch, VentureBeat and Forbes.

Robert previously was General Manager of the Video and Software Solutions division for GE Security, with annual revenues of $350 million. Robert was Executive Vice President of Pixim, Inc., a fabless semiconductor firm specializing in image sensors and processors (acquired by Sony). Before Pixim, Robert was Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Weave Innovations Inc. (acquired by Kodak), a network services developer that invented the world’s first digital picture frame, and delivered photos and other digital media to PCs and internet / mobile devices.

Robert served in various management roles at Intel Corporation, including an executive position on their Corporate Business Development team, in which he invested capital in startups that were strategically aligned with Intel’s vision.

Robert is the co-inventor of four patents and served as lead researcher for Andy Grove’s best-selling book, Only the Paranoid Survive.  He holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford University and is married with three children.

 

Alfredo Tan
SVP of Data and Strategy
Rogers Sports

Alfredo is a world-renowned disruption, innovation, and business futurist. He is currently the SVP of Strategy and Data for Rogers Sports and formerly the Chief Marketing Officer and the first Chief Digital & Innovation Officer at WestJet Airlines. He leads teams responsible for all guest facing digital experiences, technology, marketing, product management, data & research to transform user experiences. He is also an Industry Professor in the Strategic Management Faculty at McMaster University where he teaches at the undergraduate, graduate level, and in The Directors College’s Innovation Governance program for Board Directors.

Alfredo is a former Facebook & Instagram Executive working in Canada, where he was a founding team member in early 2009. Alfredo went on to work with the leadership team in Asia-Pacific in 2016 to help launch Facebook and Instagram in the Philippines. Similar management and leadership assignments brought him throughout Southeast Asia (Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia & Indonesia) and Latin America (Mexico, Colombia, Argentina & Brazil).

He was a former Senior Director at Yahoo! in Silicon Valley as a member of the Connected Life team leading the teams responsible for the Rogers Yahoo! partnership across broadband, mobile, search and media. Alfredo was also at Sympatico MSN working in the Strategic Alliances and Business Development group. He started his career in Systems Engineering & Design at Bell Nexxia, a division of BCE Inc. Alfredo has also been a frequent Keynote Speaker at leading Technology, Media, Marketing, and Corporate Conferences across North America and Asia. Alfredo has been profiled and quoted in Forbes Magazine, Marketing Magazine, The Economist, Strategy Magazine, The Globe and Mail, and may other leading industry publications.
Alfredo currently sits on the Advisory Board on Innovation at McMaster University, is a member of the Leadership Council at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, sits on the Haskayne Business School Advisory Council at the University of Calgary and is on the Board of Directors of The Association of Canadian Advertisers. He is also a member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO).

He is a graduate of the University of Toronto, McMaster University, the Harvard Business School, currently completing an Executive Master of Laws (LL.M.) with a concentration in Innovation, Law & Technology at the University of Toronto Law School and has been accepted for graduate studies in Data Science & Machine Learning at UC Berkeley.

 

Karel Vredenburg
Director of Design
IBM

Karel Vredenburg is the director of design at IBM and is responsible for global academic design programs. He introduced IBM’s new design system to the executive and staff of each of the business units of the company over the past six years as well as to numerous clients around the world. In addition to his global role, Karel is also head of IBM Studios Canada.

Karel joined IBM in 1988 after undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral studies and lecturing at the University of Toronto. He introduced User-Centered Design at IBM in 1993 and assumed a company-wide role in 1995. He has written over 60 conference and journal publications, authored a book entitled “User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach”, contributed chapters to other edited books and served as special issue editor for the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction special issue entitled “Designing the Total User Experience at IBM” and the “Ease of Use” issue of the IBM Systems Journal. He blogs at karelvredenburg.com and is based in Toronto, Canada.

 

Kee Wong
National Director & Chair, Technology & Innovation Governance Committee
Australian Institute of Corporate Directors

Kee is the founder and the Managing Director of e-Centric Innovations, a management and technology consulting company that provides strategic advice and systems integration services in e-business and IT for large enterprises and government in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and SE Asia.

Kee is Immediate Past Chairman of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA). He is a director of carsales.com Limited and the Committee of Melbourne. Kee is an advisor to the Board of VICTRACK, a member of the Victorian Government Innovation Taskforce and a member of the Victorian Government’s International Education Advisory Council. Kee is an Adjunct Professor with La Trobe University (Engineering and Technology).