ESG Risks: Best Practices for Board Oversight

Veena Ramani

Senior Program Director, Capital Market Systems, Ceres

Veena leads Ceres’ work on critical market levers that will help scale the transition to sustainable capital markets. This includes governance systems that companies should put in place at the corporate board level to allow for effective board sustainability oversight.

Veena has authored and co-authored a number of reports on board sustainability governance including: Lead from the top: Building sustainability competence on corporate boards (2017), Systems Rule: How board governance can drive sustainability performance (2018), Getting Climate Smart: A primer for corporate directors in a changing environment (2018) and Running the Risk: How Corporate Boards Can Oversee Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Issues (2019).

Veena is also the author of the 2020 Ceres report, Addressing Climate as a Systemic Risk: A call to action for US Financial Regulators, which makes the case that climate change poses systemic risk to US financial markets, and outlines over 50 action steps that financial market regulators can take to address this risk.

Veena has been interviewed in a number of corporate governance publications around governance for sustainability, including in the Cover Story of the 2017 Fall Edition of C Suite Magazine. Her work has been featured by NACD, Corporate Secretary, and Pensions.

Amelia Miazad

Founding Director & Senior Research Fellow, Business in Society Institute at Berkeley Law

Amelia Miazad is an expert in sustainable capitalism and founded and leads the Business in Society Institute at Berkeley Law. The Institute’s mission is to define and advance a legal and policy agenda that encourages companies to account for stakeholders and the environment.

Amelia teaches several courses at the intersection of stakeholder capitalism and corporate governance including: Introduction to Sustainable Capitalism & ESG, Business in Society Seminar, Corporations in Crisis, Social Enterprise Law, and Business and Human Rights. In addition to her in-residence teaching at Berkeley Law, Amelia has designed and teaches several executive education courses for C-Suite executives and board members around the world.

Amelia’s recent publications explore stakeholder governance and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) as a process for overseeing risk and a powerful tool for transforming corporate culture.

Amelia’s curriculum and scholarship rely heavily on input from experts who are implementing environmental and social considerations into their business and investment practices. She regularly presents to audiences of corporate executives in the US, South America, and Europe.

Lisa Bougie

Board Director | Advisor | Retail Executive

Board Director | Advisor | Retail Executive
– Independent Director & Digital Transformation Committee Chair, Eileen Fisher
– Independent Director, Cora
– Independent Director, Bulletin

Lisa Bougie is a high impact C-suite executive, board director, and trusted advisor with over 25 years of experience in the consumer goods sector. With deep expertise leading digitally native and omni-channel businesses at Stitch Fix, Nike, Patagonia & Gap, Lisa has achieved extraordinary success building global consumer brands. An accomplished leader with progressive P&L responsibility, Lisa has served in a variety of operating roles including Chief Merchandising Officer and General Manager.

Most recently, Lisa led the women’s business at Stitch Fix as General Manager. She joined Stitch Fix in 2013 for the opportunity to partner with the company’s founder to create the world’s first personalized fashion ecommerce service. Under Lisa’s leadership the women’s business grew profitably from $10M in annual revenue to $1B+ in less than five years. The company executed a successful IPO due, in large part, to the profitable growth that Lisa and her team delivered. 

Prior to Stitch Fix, Lisa spent nearly a decade at Nike where she held direct to consumer and merchandising leadership roles. Her last role at Nike was General Manager of Direct to Consumer for Emerging Markets. In this role she led all functional teams and was responsible for e-commerce, 1,000 Nike stores and a P&L with annual revenue of $1.3B. 

Lisa currently serves on three private boards: Eileen Fisher (women’s apparel), Cora (modern feminine care), and Bulletin (premium wholesale marketplace and small business community). She chairs the Digital Transformation Committee at Eileen Fisher and has been instrumental in the development of the company’s strategic repositioning. Additionally, she advises a number of founders and their digitally native companies with a focus on strategic planning, brand building, organizational design and leadership development.

Lisa is passionate about governance excellence and is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), co-developed and launched Santa Clara University’s Women’s Corporate Board Readiness Program, and is a Plan C Advisor. As a Plan C Advisor, Lisa provides board directors with the strategic insights and frameworks needed to assess climate related risks and catalyze opportunistic action.

David Shaw

Publishing Director, Directors & Boards and Private Company Director

David Shaw is the publishing director for MLR Media. He also co-founded and serves as conference director of the Transitions conferences, the Private Company Governance Summit and Family Business Legacy. David writes frequently on governance issues for public and private companies, and develops and maintains close relationships with multi-generational family-owned businesses. He is married, with two grown children.