Anna Catalano manages an active board portfolio, serving as an independent director for public and private corporations and not-for-profit organizations. She is a member of the board of directors of Willis Towers Watson, Kraton Corporation, HollyFrontier Corporation, Frontdoor and Appvion.
She is a director of the National Association of Corporate Directors’ (NACD) Corporate Directors Institute and president of the NACD Texas TriCities chapter. She is co-founder of The World Innovation Network and has significant experience in the not-for-profit sector having served as a board member of the Alzheimer’s Association and the Houston Grand Opera.
With more than 30 years of corporate experience, including 18 years of service on public boards, Catalano is an expert on the topics of board governance and leadership, and an outspoken champion of women in business. Her extensive career has spanned three continents in marketing, retail operations and international business development at Amoco and subsequently BP.
Catalano is a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has been recognized in Fortune’s ranking of The Most Powerful Women in International Business, Directors & Boards’ Directors to Watch and WomenInc’s Most Influential Board Directors. She is a frequent speaker on a variety of topics including board governance, leadership, innovation and the advancement of women in business. Her thoughts on various aspects of leadership can be found on her Shades of Leadership blog.
Joan Conley is an adviser to public company leadership teams and boards on the design, development and execution of governance and ESG programs.
In December 2020, after 19 years in the job, she retired from her role as senior vice president and corporate secretary at Nasdaq, where she was responsible for Nasdaq's global corporate governance program, the Nasdaq global ethics and corporate compliance program and the Nasdaq Educational Foundation.
Conley’s investor engagement experience and insights on key and emerging governance issues has earned her global recognition as a leader in corporate governance and ESG matters. Her passion for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies is evident in her role in the establishment of the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, which mentors global entrepreneurs.
She served as vice president and corporate secretary at Nasdaq’s predecessor company NASD (now FINRA) for eight years, and currently serves on the board of EJF Acquisition Corp, Tigo Energy and Harvestly.co. She received her BA from Dominican University and her MS from Loyola University of Chicago.
Conley is a member of Extraordinary Women on Boards, the Society for Corporate Governance and the Economic Club of Washington DC, and a founding and former member of the advisory board of the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Forum.
Lucy Fato oversees AIG’s global legal, compliance and regulatory groups. She is also global head of communications and government affairs. Prior to joining AIG, she was managing director, head of the Americas and general counsel of Nardello & Co, a global private investigative firm, where she remains on the advisory board.
Previously, Fato was executive vice president and general counsel of S&P Global. Before that, she was deputy general counsel and corporate secretary at Marsh & McLennan Companies. She began her legal career at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell where she spent 14 years, including five as a partner in the capital markets group.
Fato is a member of the Department of Financial Services state insurance advisory board and a member of the Life Insurance Council of NY board of directors. Each year since 2018, she has been included in NACD Directorship’s list of the 100 most influential people in the boardroom community. In 2015 and 2017 she was named by Ethisphere as one of the Attorneys Who Matter for her dedication to furthering corporate ethics.
Fato serves on the board of Advocates for Children of New York, a non-profit organization that works on behalf of children who are at risk of school-based discrimination or academic failure.
In addition, she serves on the board of directors of the Alfred E Smith Memorial Foundation, the board of trustees of the Randall’s Island Park Alliance and the board of the Coalition for the Homeless, the nation’s oldest advocacy and direct service organization helping homeless men, women and children.
Matthew Geekie is senior vice president, secretary and general counsel at Graybar, an employee-owned Fortune 500 distributor of electrical, communications and data-networking products. Over his 34-year career, he has developed broad-based experience in management, strategic planning, human resources, corporate governance and risk management and M&A.
His extensive educational background, proven leadership skills and strategic vision enable him to achieve optimal business results.
Geekie began his career in 1987 as a trial attorney defending product liability lawsuits. He joined Siegel-Robert, a family-owned, tier-one supplier to the automotive industry in 1992. Returning to private practice in 1997 at Peper Martin, he built on his M&A experience, began securities work and continued advising clients on employment and labor relations.
In 2000 Geekie moved to Emerson Electric as associate general counsel for the Emerson Process Management group of companies. In 2005 he became general counsel and secretary of Berkshire Hathaway firm XTRA Lease, where he became involved in transportation and logistics.
Graybar hired Geekie as its associate general counsel in February 2008. In August that year he was elected to Graybar’s board of directors and named senior vice president, secretary and general counsel. He sits on Graybar’s executive, audit, compensation, contributions, disclosure, finance, employees’ benefits and information technologies committees, and is chair of the board of Graybar’s Canadian subsidiary.
Geekie has a degree in history and a Juris Doctor, both from Saint Louis University. He has attended executive education and board training at Harvard Business School, the University of Chicago and the NACD.
He serves on the board of CK Power and the St Louis/Chicago advisory board of FM Global. He is a past president of the Saint Louis Zoo Association board of directors and a member of the zoo’s Marlin Perkins Society. He is also past chair of the board of the Oasis Institute and current chair of the board of the St Louis Community Foundation. He is a member of Vistage Worldwide and a former president of the Missouri Law Institute.
Throughout his career Geekie has written or spoken on various topics including corporate governance, M&A, cyber-security and enterprise risk management.
His experience, business achievements and community involvement have helped him earn several recognitions, including OnCon Icon Top 50 Corporate Counsel 2021, Missouri Lawyer’s Media In-House Counsel Award 2017 and the St Louis Business Journal’s Corporate Counsel Award for Innovation 2015.
Eileen Kamerick is CEO of The Governance Partners. She consults and lectures on corporate governance and compliance matters and is an NACD Board Leadership Fellow who has completed the NACD director certification exam. She previously served as CFO of such leading companies as BP Amoco Americas, Leo Burnett, Heidrick & Struggles and Houlihan Lokey.
Kamerick is a member of the board of directors of Associated Banc-Corp, ACV Auctions, Hochschild Mining and 24 closed-end Legg Mason mutual funds. She has previously served on the board of directors for ServiceMaster, AIG Funds and IRI. She is an SEC financial expert and chairs three audit committees and one corporate governance and social responsibility committee.
She began her career as a lawyer at the law firm Skadden Arps and holds both a JD and an MBA, with honors, in finance and international business from the University of Chicago. She also holds a BA from Boston College where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was valedictorian.
Kamerick was profiled as a Director to Watch in 2016 by Directors & Boards and in The board game: How smart women become corporate directors. She was named among the most influential corporate directors for 2019 by WomenInc. She also serves on the national board of directors of the Alzheimer’s Association.
She is a lecturer at University of Chicago Law School, Georgetown Law Center and University of Iowa College of Law and for the NACD Battlefield to Boardroom board readiness program.
