The Program
| Susan Ariel Aaronson | |
| Mark Buckley | |
| Lori Verstegen Ryan | |
| Duane Windsor | |
Susan Ariel Aaronson is associate research professor of international affairs at the George Washington University, teaching in the Elliott School International Affairs and the Graduate School of Business. She also works as a consultant for various organizations including the International Labour Organization, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Free the Slaves, and the U.S. Government and private companies. Aaronson is the author of six books and numerous articles on trade, investment, development, human rights, and global corporate social responsibility issues. Her most recent book, Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weigh Human Rights in Trade Policymaking, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2007. Her current research focuses on the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative and the role of civil society, business and human rights in good governance.
Aaronson has received more than 30 grants for her research from foundations such as the Ford, UN, Rockefeller, and Levi-Strauss Foundations, as well as corporations such as Pfizer, Intel, and Starbucks. She has also dedicated her career to educating the public about globalization. She wrote the first high school primers on trade (Trade is Everybody's Business) and is a freuent speaker on globalization issues. From 1995-1999, she was a commentator for "All Things Considered, and "Morning Edition." and she frequently does commentary on "Marketplace" Aaronson is a pro bono consultant to John Ruggie, the UN Special Representative on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations, and she serves on the advisory board of www.business-humanrights.org.
Mark Buckley is vice president of environmental affairs at Staples Inc. He directs Staples’ environmental commitment and sustainable business practices to protect and preserve natural resources. He is responsible for driving the company’s environmental leadership in four major areas: the development, purchase and promotion of environmentally preferable products; waste reduction and chain-wide recycling initiatives; energy conservation programs and renewable power procurement; and educational initiatives for customers and associates. A 19-year Staples veteran, Buckley was previously vice president of facilities management and purchasing at Staples where he directed company-wide recycling and energy conservation programs. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in biology from St. Anselm’s College and is an active member of several environmental groups for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Anthony F. Buono has a joint appointment as professor of management and sociology at Bentley University and is founding coordinator of the Bentley Alliance for Ethics and Social Responsibility. He has written and/or edited eleven books, including The Human Side of Mergers and Acquisitions (Jossey-Bass, 1989; Beard Books, 2003), A Primer on Organizational Behavior (Wiley, 7th ed. 2008), Corporate Policy, Values and Social Responsibility (Praeger, 1985), and, most recently, Socio-economic Intervention in Organizations: The Intervener-Researcher and the SEAM Approach to Organizational Analysis (Information Age Publishing, 2007) and Emerging Trends and Issues in Management Consulting: Consulting as a Janus-Faced Reality (Information Age Publishing, 2009). He is also editor of the Research in Management Consulting book series. His articles and review essays have also appeared in numerous journals, including Academy of Management Learning & Education, Across the Board, Administrative Science Quarterly, Human Relations, Journal of Organizational Change Management and Personnel Psychology.
Buono is a past chair of the Academy of Management’s Management Consulting Division, a Research Fellow with Bentley’s Center for Business Ethics, and has received Bentley’s highest honors for both teaching and research. He has also been chair of the Department of Management at Bentley. His research and consulting focus on organizational change, inter-organizational strategies, ethics and corporate responsibilities, and firm-stakeholder relationships. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Maryland, and an M.A. and Ph.D. with a concentration in Industrial and Organizational Sociology from Boston College.
Chris Deri is executive vice president, New York director of global CSR practice for Edelman. He advises Fortune 500 companies across various sectors on issues and strategies related to the environmental and social impacts of their activities. He also works with NGOs that focus on sustainability, ethical conduct and global public health. Chris provides counsel and support around communications strategy and programming, issues management, public affairs, CSR reporting, management training, public-private partnerships and stakeholder engagement.
Select key clients include: Starbucks, Avaya, Merck, AIG and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
Before joining Edelman, Deri served as Vice President Al Gore’s Regional Business outreach and finance director in the Northeast for three years. He was responsible for finance, as well as acting as the Vice President’s liaison to elected officials and business leaders in the region. Prior to that, Deri served as the director of institutional affairs for the National Minority AIDS Council’s (NMAC) – a national training and lobbying organization representing more than 3,000 community-based organizations. Deri taught English at Shandong University in the People’s Republic of China. He speaks Mandarin. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and lives in New York with his wife and three daughters.
Joan Elise Dubinsky is the chief ethics officer for the International Monetary Fund, based in Washington, D.C. She has institution-wide accountability for advising, guiding, communicating, and enforcing the Fund’s values and standards. Reporting to the managing director, Dubinsky provides independent ethics advice and counsel to all levels of the Fund and conducts sensitive internal investigations. Her mission is to help the Fund make ethical decisions in a constantly changing global economy.
Dubinsky also leads the Rosentreter Group, a management consulting practice providing expertise in business ethics, organizational development, and corporate compliance. She has been retained to implement values- and rules-based initiatives, conduct program assessments, measure the effectiveness of compliance systems, develop executive level interventions, and design high-impact training programs.
With close to twenty-five years of experience in the field, Dubinsky has served as the Ethics Officer, Associate General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for the American Red Cross (1985 – 1993) Senior Legal Counsel and Compliance Officer for The MITRE Corporation (1993 – 1996); founding member of the Arthur Andersen consulting practice in business ethics (1996 – 1997); and Associate Director, Employee Development for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1997 – 2004). Dubinsky leads the Conference Board’s Research Working Group on Working at the Intersection of Human Resources, Ethics & Compliance. She is an Executive Fellow with the Center for Business Ethics. She is a contributing author for the ECOA’s Ethics and Compliance Handbook, documenting best practices in the field of corporate compliance. She has published articles in such journals as Law Governance Review, Ethikos, Federal Ethics Reporter, IOMA’s Report on Preventing Business Fraud, CPA Consultant, and the Center for Business Ethics News. Her work in ethics training was prominently featured in Ethics Matters: How to Implement Values-Driven Management, by Dawn-Marie Driscoll and W. Michael Hoffman (2000). Her work on investigations is highlighted in Blackwell’s Companion to Business Ethics, ed. by Robert Fredericks (1999). A Phi Beta Kappa, Dubinsky received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin and her undergraduate degree in Religious Philosophy from the Residential College, University of Michigan.
Dubinsky is active in the cultural arts, folk music, and dance communities of Washington, D.C., and serves on the Board of Directors of the Olney Theatre Center.
Manuel Escudero is special adviser to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and head secretariat of the Principles for Responsible Management Education. He is also the executive director of the Research Center for the Global Compact and a Senior Fellow with The Levin Institute. Prior to joining the UNGC, Escudero was a professor of macroeconomics at IE Business School in Madrid, Spain. During his career at the IE Business School, he was also the founder and associate director of the IE Executive College, associate general director of the IE Business School, and Research Dean and Faculty Dean. He has written eight books and numerous articles, public reports and working papers. His most recent books include Libro azul 2004: La implantación del Pacto Mundial en las empresas españolas (2005), Homo Globalis, en Busca del Buen Gobierno (2005) and Pleno Empleo (1998).
Escudero’s public sector experience in Spain includes his role as director of the Ministerial Group of Thought Leaders on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Secretary of the CSR Experts Forum for Corporate Social Responsibility under the Chairmanship of the Minister of Labor, Secretary General - Spanish Network of the UN Global Compact and senior advisor for Policy and Programs of the nominated candidate for Prime Minister of the Spanish Government. He has is currently Chair of the European Union Network of International Civil Servants, a member of the Board, Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI), a member of the Executive Committee of the Asociación Española de Funcionarios Internacionales (New York Chapter), and a member of the CSR Consultative Council of DKW Insurances (Spain). He holds a B.Sc. from Escuela Superior de Técnicas Empresariales (Spain), and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.
Blair W. Feltmate is director of sustainable development, Ontario Power Generation. Previously, he was vice president of sustainable development, Bank of Montreal/Jones Heward Investment Council, and prior to that Feltmate spent 10 years developing the sustainable development programs for two dozen multi-national corporations.
Feltmate is on the Boards of the Canadian Expert Delegation for ISO 26000, Canadian Electricity Association Sustainability Program, Ontario Energy Association Environment Program, Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance, and Research Network for Business Sustainability (Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario). He has also been sustainable development advisor to the American Chemistry Council (Washington, D.C.), Board Member of the Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development (Ottawa, Canada), and Board Member of the Social Investment Organization (Canada). He is an invited member to the New York Academy of Sciences. Feltmate is the author of more than 60 publications on environmental science and the business case for sustainable development.
Robert E. Frederick is professor of philosophy and chair of the Philosophy Department at Bentley University in Waltham, MA. He is also Research Scholar at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley, editor of the journal Business and Society Review, and former chair of the Bentley Faculty Senate. He received a BA degree in economics from Rice University and an MA and a PhD in philosophy from Brown University. He has published a number of articles in philosophy, business ethics and environmental ethics, and has edited or co-edited ten books on various topics in applied ethics and philosophy. Prior to attending graduate school and joining Bentley he worked for nine years for a large financial institution in Atlanta, GA, where he was vice president for administrative services.
Patricia M. Flynn is Trustee Professor of economics and management at Bentley University, where she served as Dean of the McCallum Graduate School of Business from 1992 to 2002. She has written extensively on high technology and economic development, and on women on corporate boards and in executive suites. Her publications include Technology Life Cycles and Human Resources and Turbulence in the American Workplace. She is co-author of The Boston Club’s annual Census of Women Directors and Executive Officers of Massachusetts Public Companies. Her work has been cited in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Time, Business Week, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Accounting Today, Financial Executive, and on NBC’s The Today Show. Her research has been funded by a variety of sources, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Institute of Education and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Flynn currently serves on the board of directors of RiverSource Investments (formerly American Express Funds), where she is a member of the Investment Review, Contracts and Governance Committees. She previously served on the boards of Boston Fed Bancorp Inc., U.S. Trust, and The Federal Savings Bank, each of which was acquired. In the not-for-profit arena, she is a director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a trustee of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, and a director of the National Association of Corporate Directors/New England (NACD/NE), where she chaired the Selection Committee for the 2008 Director of the Year Awards. In addition, she currently serves as chair of the Board of Visitors of the New England Baptist Hospital. For the past six years, Pat has led the AACSB-International seminar on the effective use of business advisory councils for business schools.
Flynn has been awarded the New England Women’s Leadership Award, the Adamian Award for Teaching Excellence, the Bentley University Scholar of the Year Award, the Boston University Distinguished Alumni Award, and an honorary degree in humane letters from Emmanuel College. She received her bachelor's degree in economics from Emmanuel College, and a master's degree and PhD in economics from Boston University.
Robert D. Galliers is provost and academic vice president at Bentley University since 2002. Prior to coming to Bentley, he was professor of information systems and research director in the Department of Information Systems at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the UK. Before joining the LSE, he served as Lucas Professor of Business Management Systems and Dean of Warwick Business School, UK, and earlier as Foundation Professor and Head of the School of Information Systems at Curtin University in Australia.
A leader in the field of management information systems, Galliers is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and a fellow and past president of Association for Information Systems (AIS), the British Computer Society and the Royal Society of Arts. He has held visiting professorships at INSEAD, France; University of St Gallen, Switzerland; City University of Hong Kong; the Institute for Advanced Management Studies, Belgium; National University of Singapore; Hong Kong Polytechnic University; and Bond University, Australia. He currently holds Visiting Professorships at the LSE, the Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Australia, and Brunel Business School, UK.
Galliers has published widely in many of the leading international journals on Information Systems (IS), one of which was selected as one of the five best IS journal articles world-wide published in 2006. He has also written and co-written a number of books, the most recent being: fourth edition of the best seller, Strategic Information Management (Routledge, 2009); Exploring Information Systems Research Approaches (Routledge, 2007); Rethinking Management Information Systems (Oxford University Press, 1999), and IT and Organizational Transformation (Wiley, 1998). His research focuses on IS strategy and the management of change associated with the adoption and appropriation of IT-based systems within and between organizations. He holds an AB degree with honors in Economics from Harvard University; an MA with distinction in Management Systems from Lancaster University, UK, and a PhD in Information Systems from the LSE. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree by Turku University of Economics and Business Administration, Finland in 1995.
John P. (Jack) Hansen is an attorney and consultant to leading international organizations and multinational companies who provides strategic advice on a broad range of corporate compliance and ethics issues. An Executive Fellow with the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University, he currently consults with a variety of public companies, non-profit and international organizations including the World Bank Group. Previously he was senior regulatory counsel for State Street Corporation, a global financial services firm.
Hansen holds a JD from Case Western Reserve University School of Law; a Master of Public Administration degree from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University; and a BA in political science from the University of Massachusetts. He holds leadership positions in the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Boston Bar Association, and the American Society of Association Executives. Hansen is admitted to the bar in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and State of Ohio.
Laura Hartman is a professor of business ethics and legal studies in the Department of Management at DePaul University’s College of Commerce, where she has received the university’s Excellence in Teaching Award. She also serves as research director of DePaul’s Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. She has served as the Gourlay Professor at the Melbourne Business School/Trinity College at the University of Melbourne (2007-2008), as an invited professor at INSEAD (France), HEC (France), the Université Paul Cezanne Aix Marseille III and at the Grenoble Graduate School of Business, among other European universities. On behalf of the accrediting body AACSB, Hartman is the global coordinator of the bi-annual seminar series, “Teaching Business Ethics.” Previously, Hartman held DePaul’s Wicklander Chair in Professional Ethics and subsequently was named the Grainger Chair of Business Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, where she was named one of the top five professors of the year. She has also served as an adjunct professor of business law and ethics at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where she was placed on the Honor Roll for Excellence in Teaching.
Hartman is a recognized expert in the field of business ethics on issues related to corporate governance, responsibility and culture, the employment relationship, global labor conditions and standards, the impact of technology on employment relationships, and the alleviation of global poverty through profitable corporate partnerships. Her publishing includes more than 80 cases, books and articles in, among other journals, Business Ethics Quarterly, Business & Society Review, Business Ethics: A European Review, and the Journal of Business Ethics. Her research and consulting efforts have also garnered national media attention by publications such as Fortune Small Business, where she was named one of the “Top 10 Minds for Small Business,” as well as the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and the New York Times.
W. Michael Hoffman is the founding executive director of the Center for Business Ethics and Hieken Professor of Business and Professional Ethics at Bentley University. He chaired Bentley’s Department of Philosophy for 17 years. He has written or edited 16 books, including Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality (now in its 4th edition), Ethics Matters: How to Implement Values-Driven Management (2000) and The Ethical Edge: Tales of Organizations that Have Faced Moral Crises (1995). He also has published more than 95 articles.
Hoffman has consulted on business ethics for numerous universities, government agencies, and corporations, including Bath Iron Works, Cablevision Systems, CBS, Congress' Office of Technology Assessment, Coopers & Lybrand (now Pricewaterhouse- Coopers), Fidelity Investments, GTE, General Electric, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG Peat Marwick, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (now National Grid), NYNEX (now Verizon), and TRW Systems. He has been a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and Consultant, a lecturer at universities and conferences around the world, and an expert witness on business ethics in numerous legal cases. He is on the board of editors of many business ethics journals, was a co-founder and President of the Society for Business Ethics, and served on the advisory board of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. He was the founding Executive Director of the Ethics Officer Association (1991-1995), later a member of its Board of Directors (1995 - 1997), and then the Association’s Advisor to the Board for ten years.
Hoffman has been quoted extensively on business ethics in newspapers and magazines including the Boston Globe, BusinessWeek, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Newsweek, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, U.S. News and World Report, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post and is interviewed frequently for television and radio programs around the country. He was named the Humanist of the Year by The Ethical Society of Boston in 2007. He received his PhD in philosophy in 1972 at the University of Massachusetts in conjunction with Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges. Hoffman resides in West Newton, Massachusetts with his wife, Bliss Read Hoffman.
Ralph W. Huenemann is Professor Emeritus of International Business on the Faculty of Business at the University of Victoria (Canada). His fields of scholarly interest include the economy of China; international trade, finance and development; project appraisal; economic history; and global business and society. He has served as a consultant economist on many development projects in China and elsewhere in Asia for the World Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency, the International Development Research Centre, and other agencies. He is a three-time winner of the UVic Faculty of Business award of excellence for outstanding teaching. He has recently returned from a two-year appointment as Visiting Professor of International Business and Economics at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University in Beijing, China. He was educated at Oberlin College (B.A.) and Harvard University (M.A. and Ph.D.).
Thomas R. McCormick is Group Compliance & Ethics Officer at BP plc, London. He is responsible for promoting, overseeing and building the Group’s capability to deliver compliance with externally defined laws and regulations, the Code of Conduct and related Group Standards.
Prior to his current assignment, McCormick was Associate General Counsel and Director of Global Ethics and Compliance for The Dow Chemical Company, located in Midland, Michigan. As the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for the company, he managed the Office of Global Ethics and Compliance and advised senior management on the most effective ways to maintain compliance with legal requirements and company values and policies. In this position, he directed and coordinated activities involving the company’s ethics and compliance effort including communications, training, and internal investigations. He coordinated Dow’s geographical ethics and compliance committees in Latin America, North America, Europe, and Pacific areas as well as Dow’s subsidiary, Dow AgroSciences.
Mette Morsing is Professor and Director of the CBS Center for Corporate Social Responsibility (cbsCSR) at Copenhagen Business School since 2001. Her research interests focus on corporate social responsibility within the areas of organization theory, communication, identity, image and reputation management. She has published a number of international books, book chapters and journal articles on these issues. Her latest books are CSR in SMEs: Business or Responsibility? (2008, in Danish) with Steen Vallentin and Steen Hildebrandt, and Corporate Communication: Convention, Complexity and Critique (Sage Publications, 2008) with professors Lars Thøger Christensen and George Cheney. Recently Morsing received a large research grant from the Danish Ministry of Science for a 3-year research project on CSR and online communication: Responsible Business in the Blogosphere.
Morsing is a member of a number of European committees and boards on issues of CSR. She chairs the Nordic Center for Corporate Responsibility, and she also serves as a Vice-Chair at the Management Board of the European Academy of Business in Society’s (EABIS).
Will O’Brien is a retired business executive, change agent, consultant, attorney and adjunct professor of management committed to educating future leaders to address environmental, economic and social challenges. Since retirement from the Information Technology industry, he has been teaching business courses to undergraduate and graduate students at Bentley University, Suffolk University and Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
In 2008, he created and launched a Business Sustainability course in Bentley’s MBA program, with the primary objective of developing environmental stewardship as a capability for these students. As part of the course, student teams developed Sustainability Plans for local non-profits, municipalities and corporations. O’Brien is a member of Bentley’s Sustainability & Energy Taskforce that is currently focused on generating Bentley’s Sustainability Plan to enable the achievement long-term of the university’s commitment to carbon neutrality.
Eric (Rick) Oches is associate professor of Natural and Applied Sciences at Bentley University. He brings an interdisciplinary perspective to educating future business leaders who embrace environmental responsibility and sustainable practices. His research, funded by agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey, focuses on Earth’s recent climate and environmental history and has taken him to diverse field localities across Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, Argentina, Alaska, mid-continent U.S., and Yemen. His work is expanding into the area of public policy analysis to explore options for a more sustainable future, given the challenges of population growth, increased consumption of natural resources, environmental degradation, and global climate change.
As a faculty member of Geology and former Chair of Environmental Science & Policy at the University of South Florida, Professor Oches received an Innovative Teaching grant to integrate research on the geology and environments of South Florida and the Florida Keys into the undergraduate curriculum. His specific teaching interests relate to environmental science and geology; climate change; water resources; and the environmental impacts of resource extraction, consumption and disposal. His work has been published in Quaternary International, Geochemistry, Geophysics & Geosystems, Quaternary Science Reviews, Paléorient, Archaeological Prospection and Earth-Science Reviews, among others. His professional affiliations include the Geological Society of America, American Geophysical Union, and National Association of Geoscience Teachers. He holds a BS from Purdue University, and MS and PhD from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst.
Richard W. Pearl is vice president, CSR and environmental sustainability officer, Community Affairs Department, State Street Corporation. As the Corporate Social Responsibility Officer for State Street, he also heads the newly created Office of Environmental Sustainability in the company’s Community Affairs Department. State Street’s expanded CSR efforts have led to its inclusion on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the FTSE4Good Index.
Among Pearl’s CSR responsibilities are managing State Street’s Corporate Social Responsibility Working Group, overseeing the production of the company’s annual Corporate Social Responsibility report, and working with internal and external stakeholder groups on CSR issues. He is also the primary advisor to an Executive Vice President (EVP)-level Environmental Sustainability Committee at State Street.
Pearl is on the steering committee of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), and is the co-chair of UNEP FI’s North American Task Force. He is founding member of The Conference Board’s Center for Corporate Citizenship & Sustainability. He also served on a combined UNEP FI/ Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) team that developed the Financial Service Sector Supplement to the GRI from 2006-2008. He is a graduate of Harvard University, and lives with his family in Concord, MA.
Frank Piantidosi is the Chief Executive Officer of Deloitte’s North American Financial Advisory Services LLC, which is composed of the Financial Advisory Practices of Mexico, Canada and the United States. In his role as CEO, Frank is responsible for integrating the five service lines – Forensic & Dispute, M&A Services, Corporate Finance, Valuation and Reorganization Services – across the three member firms. He also serves as the global leader of the Forensic & Dispute Services (“F&DS”) practices of the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu member firms and their affiliates (“DTT Member Firms”). During this tenure, Frank lead the creation of a global network of Forensic and Dispute professionals that regularly work together on major cross border engagements.
Frank is also the Deloitte advisory partner on the World Bank; was recently given Top Secret Security Clearance by the Department of Defense; and was appointed to the Directors of Transparency International, United States Chapter. He has dedicated over two decades to the development of the forensic investigations and dispute consulting discipline and his experience in forensic and dispute services transcends borders. He led the engagement relating to the Volcker Commission’s investigation of Swiss banks on behalf of Holocaust victims, which resulted in a $1.2 billion settlement and the return of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets to victims and their heirs. He also spearheaded the launch of the Deloitte Forensic Center, a think tank charged with exploring new approaches to mitigating the costs, risks and effects of fraud, corruption and other issues facing the global business community. Since becoming the global F&DS leader, he has built robust resources within the DTT member firms around the world that provide sophisticated forensic and technology services to many of the world’s multinational organizations.
Frank is a regular speaker at universities across the U.S. and in front of industry organizations and professional groups. He has been a valuable news source to top-tier media outlets including The Wall Street Journal and trade publications like CFO magazine, Crain's New York Business and Accounting Today.
Veena Ramani is a manager in Ceres’ Corporate Programs. Since July 2006, she has managed the relationships with a portfolio of Ceres companies, primarily from the electric utility and financial services sectors. She works with these companies on a variety of ESG strategy, performance and disclosure issues, including policy and program development, sustainability reporting, and stakeholder engagement processes. Ramani is also responsible for the oversight and management of the Ceres coalition.
Before Ceres, Ramani worked as a Management Consultant with CDM, an environmental consulting firm focused on providing a variety of sustainability services to clients in the public and private sectors. Prior to that, she spent three years with Integrative Strategies Forum, a Washington, DC based NGO, working on developing national and international policy solutions on sustainable development, building consensus and coalitions among civil society groups on these issues and lobbying government representatives. She has also practiced law in India. Ramani has an LL.M (Masters in Law) degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a B.A. LL. B (Hons) degree from National Law School from India University, Bangalore.
Héctor R. Rodríguez is director of global EHS and sustainability affairs at Biogen IDEC. In this role, he is responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility Program development, Energy and Water Management, and Environmental, Health and Safety Compliance. Key experiences include the development and implementation of Sustainability Strategies addressing Climate Change impacts on the corporation, Green Manufacturing and Green Chemistry Programs.
Rodríguez’s experience and approach to sustainability is one that strives to integrate environmental, social and profit aspects into one, creating a truly “sustainable” Corporate Sustainability Program. He also participates in the non-profit arena as a Board Advisor on Sustainability Affairs for GreenWorks Community Development Corporation, headquartered in New York City. He has a Masters in Science in Industrial Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology and an MBA from Stern School of Business in New York.
Anne Marie Taylor is currently the World Bank Group’s (WBG) chief ethics officer. She has more than 20 years of research, ethics, compliance and corporate experience, with interests ranging from teaching, training and communications to program development and related aspects of effective ethics and compliance programs.
As chief ethics officer, Taylor is accountable for providing leadership on corporate ethical issues and an awareness and practice of the WBG’s core values and ethical standards. As head of the Office of Ethics and Business conduct she leads the team in the support and guidance to management and staff worldwide on the full range of ethical standards, advising and where called for investigating misconduct, conflicts of interest and financial disclosure and compliance issues. In addition to these business lines, Taylor heads the outreach, communication and knowledge management functions of the Office of Ethics and Business conduct. In her role she reports to the President of the World Bank Group and makes recommendations to senior management on communication and prevention initiatives, trends identified by EBC and resolutions, and comments on related Bank policies and guidelines, contributing to policy recommendations and guidelines to deal with new or evolving areas related to the ethical aspects of corporate behavior in an international institution.
Prior to being selected by the World Bank in early 2008, Taylor consulted on a number of health care projects in Canada. She has previously served as senior ethics officer and ombudsman at Merck & Co. Inc., a global research-driven pharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of vaccines and medicines. In that role Dr.Taylor assisted employees in resolving work-related issues and in managing ethics and compliance matters domestically and internationally. She provided consultative support ensuring client-group compliance with OIG and FSG requirements of the 7 Elements of an Effective Compliance Program in markets in Asia and Canada, the Vaccines Division globally, and Finance. She also held related responsibilities for Europe, mid-East and Africa, the Americas and Corporate. She holds a B.Sc. from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, and a D.V.M. with Honours from the University of Guelph in Ontario, and is licensed to practice.
Lori Verstegen Ryan is professor of management at San Diego State University, specializing in corporate governance and business ethics. She is the Director of SDSU’s Corporate Governance Institute, a research and education center dedicated to the study and application of responsible corporate governance principles worldwide. Ryan is Past-President and Fellow of the International Association for Business and Society and is on the Executive Committee of the Academy of Management’s Social Issues in Management Division. She is a Senior Research Fellow of the National Center for Business Ethics based at Loyola University – New Orleans, and was a member of the Program Committee of the 2005 Teaching Business Ethics Conference sponsored by the University of Colorado – Boulder. She is on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Review and Business Ethics Quarterly and is Associate Editor for Corporate Governance of Business & Society.
Ryan's research focuses primarily on the intersection of ethics and corporate governance, with a special emphasis on the roles, characteristics, and responsibilities of institutional and individual investors. Her work has appeared in such journals as Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Journal of Management, Business Ethics Quarterly, Business & Society, Educational & Psychological Measurement, and Corporate Governance: An International Review. In addition to an M.B.A. from the University of Puget Sound, she received her M.A. in Philosophy and Ph.D. in Business Administration – Management from the University of Washington.
Steve Sacco is vice president environmental affairs and sustainability, Invensys PLC. He has 17 years of experience in the manufacturing and consulting industries. He joined Invensys in 2002 and has held senior level positions in both environmental affairs and health and safety. He is currently responsible for Invensys’ global environmental remediation portfolio and the company’s sustainability strategy. Prior to joining Invensys, he was a senior consultant at a global environmental consulting firm where he led the technical and regulatory strategies of environmental projects for Fortune 500 companies. Sacco earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology from Cornell University, his Masters of Science in Geology from Ohio State University, and his MBA from Suffolk University. In 2008, he was invited to lecture on business sustainability at the Bentley College McCallum Graduate School of Business in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Linda K. Treviño is Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior and Ethics in the Department of Management and Organization in the Smeal College of Business, The Pennsylvania State University, where she has been on the faculty since 1987. Professor Treviño served as Chair of the Department of Management and Organization for four years and currently serves as the Director of the Shoemaker Program in Business Ethics. She is known primarily for her unique focus on ethics in organizations as a management issue. Starting with her 1986 article on ethical decision making in organizations, her pioneering research on the management of ethical conduct in organizations is widely cited, and is known internationally. She has contributed to knowledge regarding the management of individual ethical conduct in organizations and the management of organizational climate and culture to support and encourage ethical behavior. This work has been published in over 60 articles in the best management and business ethics journals. She has also co-authored two books, Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How to do it Right (with Katherine Nelson, published by John Wiley, fourth edition, 2007) and Managing Ethics in Business Organizations: Social Science Perspectives (with Gary Weaver, published by Stanford University Press, 2003).
Treviño also conducts ethics training for FINRA and has made presentations to practitioner organizations including the Defense Industry Initiative, the Conference Board of Canada, the Money Management Institute, the Office of Government Ethics, the Veterans Health Administration, the Ethics Officers Association, the Office of Government Ethics, and the Human Resources Planning Society. She has also consulted with for-profit and non-profit organizations and has led research projects for Arthur Andersen’s Ethics & Responsible Business Practices Consulting and for the Ethics Resource Center Fellows Program where she currently leads the Academic Fellows. She continues an active research program with current research that includes work on ethical leadership, values-based initiatives in organizations, moral awareness and disengagement processes in ethical decision making, and influences on "speaking up" in organizations. She is currently working with a research team associated with the U.S. Army’s Center of Excellence for the Professional Military Ethic at West Point and has recently completed work as a member of the Ethics Commission for the Service Employees International Union. In 2004, Professor Treviño was invited to serve as a core faculty member in the Business Roundtable’s Institute for Business Ethics. She also served on the AACSB’s task force on ethics in the curriculum and began a four-year term as the Academy of Management Ethics Ombudsperson in January, 2006. Treviño serves as the Management Area Editor for Business Ethics Quarterly, serves on the editorial review board of Journal of Management, and completed a term as Associate Editor of Academy of Management Review in 2008. She is currently serving as the Chair for the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management. In 2007, Treviño was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Management. She received her PhD in Management from Texas A&M University.
Coeni van Beek is the global leader responsible for the Ethics and Business Conduct program of PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the biggest service organizations in the world with 155,000 employees working in 148 countries. He is a problem solver, change agent and relationship builder with extensive international experience and management skills in project management, organizational learning, ethics and business conduct, change management, and cross-cultural communication. He has travelled extensively in his professional career, has lived on three continents, and has worked in more than 65 countries on six continents. He is also a Board Member of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Associate (ECOA).
van Beek obtained a B Comm. degree after which he completed his Hons B (Cum Laude) and Masters in Public Administration at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). He completed his doctorate at Tilburg University (The Netherlands) in 2003. He also received a postgraduate certificate in French Government and Administration from the University of Renes 1 in France.
van Beek is a family man, supports the Red Sox and in cricket (his favorite sport) he supports two teams – South Africa and whatever team is playing against Australia. He is also is a gemologist and goldsmith, and spends his free time sourcing gemstones and designing jewelry.
Robert G. Ventura is general counsel for Metso Automation USA Inc. He is responsible for managing the legal affairs of Metso’s North American business operations, including corporate governance, ethics, regulatory compliance, litigation, commercial contracts, intellectual property and mergers and acquisitions.
Prior to joining Metso, Ventura was director of mergers and acquisitions for Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems division. In this role, he led the planning, initiation, execution and integration of acquisitions and divestitures. Before joining Raytheon, he spent nine years as the general counsel of Quebecor World (USA) Inc., a leader of the commercial printing industry with $5 billion in annual revenue, and two years as the general counsel of GL&V, a multi-national company in the pulp and paper industry.
Prior to joining Quebecor, Ventura spent 11 years practicing corporate and tax law with Phillips & Vineberg in Montreal and Debevoise & Plimpton and Shearman & Sterling in New York City, where he provided legal counsel to publicly traded and privately held corporations doing business on national and international platforms. He is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, New York, and Ontario. He obtained his Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.), with honors, and Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degrees from McGill University and his Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in Taxation from New York University School of Law.
Curtis C. Verschoor is the Emeritus Ledger & Quill Research Professor in the School of Accountancy and MIS and honorary Senior Wicklander Research Fellow in the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics, both at DePaul University. He is also CEO and Chair of C.C. Verschoor & Associates, Inc., author, researcher, consultant, speaker, audit committee chair and member, and expert witness. He is a former senior corporate finance officer of several large international public companies and served with two large international public accounting firms.
His special expertise relates to the subjects of corporate governance and audit committees, applied business ethics, internal controls, social and internal auditing, and auditing management. He also holds appointments as Research Scholar in the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University, Fellow of the Corporate Governance Center at Kennesaw State University, and Honorary Professor in the Sir John Cass School of Business at City University, London. He received undergraduate and MBA degrees from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a doctorate in business education from Northern Illinois University.
Prior to joining academia, his financial career in industry included service as the Corporate Controller of Colgate-Palmolive Company and of Baxter Laboratories, the VP of Finance and CFP of a diversified public corporation, and as the Chief Internal Auditor and Assistant Controller of The Singer Company. Previously, he was the National Director of Education of Touche, Ross & Co., a predecessor of Deloitte & Touche, LLP. Verschoor has been widely quoted in the media on a global basis as an expert and has written books, monographs, and articles in prominent journals including Journal of Accountancy, Directors’ Monthly, Internal Auditor, Strategic Finance, Management Accounting, Internal Auditing, Bank Management, CPA Journal, Executive Citizen, Ethos, Managerial Planning, Values, and EDP Auditor. He serves as the Editor and publishes an Ethics Column in Strategic Finance and is a Contributing Editor on Ethics and Corporate Governance and the Book and Research Review Editor of Internal Auditing. His most recent books are Audit Committee Essentials published in 2008 and Ethics and Compliance: Challenges for Internal Auditing, in 2007. Nearing release is Internal Auditing: Fundamental Principles and Best Practices.
Cynthia Clark Williams is an assistant professor of management at Bentley University. She teaches strategic management to undergraduates and a doctoral seminar in environmental, social and governance issues. Her research interests focus on corporate disclosures, governance, organizational ethics and strategy. Williams also serves as the director of the Harold S. Geneen Institute of Corporate Governance, an institute dedicated to educating doctoral students in social, comparative and reformative approaches to governance. Prior to joining Bentley, she was a member of the faculty at Boston University following a career in the banking and securities industry. She is an active member of the International Association of Business & Society and the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management. She is a frequent reviewer for a variety of journals and has presented numerous papers at conferences in North America and Europe. Recent publications include articles in Business Ethics Quarterly and Business & Society. She holds a PhD from the honors program at Boston University and a Masters degree from Northwestern University.
Duane Windsor is the Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Management in the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University (Houston, TX), where he has been on the faculty since 1977. Presently he teaches required courses in leadership and business ethics in the MBA for Executives program. Professor Windsor’s recent research has focused on corporate social responsibility, the stakeholder theory of the firm, and the role of business and society and business ethics in business school curricula. He received the BA at Rice University, and the PhD at Harvard University.
Windsor has published several books (including one second edition) and other monographs (including edited works and major technical studies), in addition to various journal articles and book chapters. He has served as the president, program chair, and proceedings co-editor of the International Association for Business and Society (IABS). He has also served as the program chair and division chair of the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of The Academy of Management. Beginning January 1, 2007, he assumed duties as editor of Business & Society, the official journal of IABS, published by Sage.
