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7 Questions with Board Members of Large Enterprises

Read insights and thoughts on leadership from Board Members of Large Enterprises around the world.
Thank you to the Board Members of Large Enterprises who have answered our 7 questions so far, we hope you find their answers helpful
for you in your leadership journey!

7 Questions with Faris Alami

7 Questions with Faris Alami

Name: Faris Alami

Current title: CEO

Current organization: International Strategic Management
As ISM Founder, Faris works with international leaders and entrepreneurs on strategies
and implementations to create an empowering environment for startups and businesses to
prosper and grow. He has functioned as:
* Special Advisor, Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and SME Development Expert with the World Bank
* Business Advisor with Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program
* Affiliate with Kauffman Foundation
* Mentor to MBA Students and Entrepreneurs Globally
In his work facilitating economic and workforce development programs that include
entrepreneurship, small/medium enterprise development, mentorship, and funding, Faris
works with high-ranking officials — presidents of countries, ministries, universities,incubators/accelerators, economic development groups. The ISM team has been particularly successful helping entrepreneurs in underserved communities find success.

7 Questions with Karim Sekkat

7 Questions with Karim Sekkat

Name: Karim Sekkat

Current title: Chairman & CEO

Current organization: Oxford Engineering Group

Karim started his first venture while at business school, followed a path in investment banking and held various board positions of private and public companies in Europe before going at it alone. Karim has pursued a buy & build strategy. He is the recipient of multiple regional and national runner up awards, and a seasoned speaker at major business schools and for business and manufacturing magazines. His vision led to its company being the only subcontract manufacturer in the United Kingdom awarded the investor in People Gold standard. Karim also races in the Ginetta GT5 Challenge in Europe.

7 Questions with Cheryl Hayman

7 Questions with Cheryl Hayman

Name: Cheryl Hayman

Current title: Non-Executive Director

Current organization: Shriro Holdings Ltd.ASX:SHM) , HGL Ltd (ASX:HNG), Chartered Accountants Aust and NZ, Darlinghurst Theatre Co, and Peer Support Australia.I’m also a Member of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Digital Experts Advisory Committee, as well as an elected HCF Councillor.

Cheryl is an experienced Non-Executive Director and has served on ASX Listed, public unlisted, start-up and not-for-profit boards. Cheryl has experience in Chairing Nomination and Remuneration Committees and membership of Finance, Audit and Risk committees. Cheryl’s skills are proven to adapt across a breadth of sectors, including consumer goods, bioscience, investment B2B, agribusiness, retailing, education, professional services and the arts.

She has a keen interest in the listed corporate sector, as well as IPO and pre-IPO businesses in emerging and maturing industries. She is keen and driven to join companies in growing sectors with an eye to transformational growth and a culture of strong values with an outwardly positioned purpose.

Cheryl utilises her non-traditional path to the Boardroom, diverse perspective and leadership experience to guide companies wanting to grow through diversification and innovation. She is passionate about using digital transformation to achieve growth at scale and deliver real customer outcomes and business results.
Cheryl had a lengthy and successful global marketing career in multinational consumer- facing organisations.

7 Questions with Sophal Ear

7 Questions with Sophal Ear

Name: Sophal Ear

Current title: Chair

Current organisation: Collective Education, Inc.

Currently the Chair of Collective Education, Inc., and re-elected to the Crescenta Valley Town Council in November 2018 to a second 3-year term, encompassing more than 22,000 residents in unincorporated Los Angeles County, California, Sophal Ear, PhD, National Association of Corporate Directors "Director Certified", is a tenured Associate Professor of Diplomacy & World Affairs at Occidental College in Los Angeles where he lectures on political economy, security, development, and Asia. Previously, he taught how to rebuild countries after wars at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and international development at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He consulted for the World Bank, was Assistant Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme in East Timor, Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Advisor to Cambodia's first private equity fund Leopard Capital, Audit Chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and Treasurer of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center. A TED Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, and Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, he sits on the Boards of Refugees International (Washington, DC), Partners for Development (Silver Spring, MD), International Public Management Network (Washington, DC), the Southeast Asia Development Program (Phnom Penh, Cambodia), and the Center for Khmer Studies (Siem Reap, Cambodia). He is the author of Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2013, http://amzn.to/UXhoWc), co-author of The Hungry Dragon: How China’s Resources Quest is Reshaping the World (Routledge, 2013, http://amzn.to/WkxCEf), and co-editor of the virtual issue of the journal Politics and the Life Sciences on Coronavirus: Politics, Economics, and Pandemics (Cambridge University Press, 2020, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/virtual-issues/virtual-issue-3). He wrote and narrated the award-winning documentary film "The End/Beginning: Cambodia"​ (47 minutes, 2011, news blurb http://youtu.be/QwsSDPRI25E) based on his 2009 TED Talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/sophal_ear_escaping_the_khmer_rouge) and has appeared in four other documentaries. A graduate of Princeton and Berkeley, he moved to the US from France as a Cambodian refugee at the age of 10.

7 Questions with Anand Srinivasan

7 Questions with Anand Srinivasan

Name: Anand Srinivasan

Current title: Sr. Vice President, North America

Current organisation: Intelegencia

A strategic leader, with a career delivering business solutions for some of the world's leading organizations. Bringing the best of the world's strengths to realize innovations, and actively contributing to a stronger and more responsible global community.

7 Questions with Mark Cameron

7 Questions with Mark Cameron

Name: Mark Cameron

Current title: CEO

Current organisation: W3.Digital

Mark is the CEO of W3.Digital, a board member of Mesh.AI and an advisory board member of Education Horizons Group.
He writes on technology strategy for Forbes and was the digital strategy columnist for BRW for 6 years. In 2020 Mark started teaching the Digital Transformation Masterclass as part of the Executive MBA program at Deakin.

7 Questions with Reenita Malhotra Hora

7 Questions with Reenita Malhotra Hora

Name: Reenita Malhotra Hora

Current title: Head of Marketing & Operations

Current organisation: SRI International

Reenita is a founder, executive-level content, operations, and marketing leader. With multiple years of experience in the USA and Asia, she grows organizations, ranging from early stage startups through mid-size businesses, through storytelling, creative marketing and strategy. She currently heads marketing and communications for SRI International, Silicon Valley's pioneer science and deep tech research institute generating annual revenues exceeding $450 million. At SRI International, Reenita manages brand and institute-wide marketing strategy and operations to impact talent recruitment and retention, federal business development and commercial sales. She has developed, led, and executed integrated strategies to reinvent SRI’s digital roadmap as it enters into its all-important 75th year. By driving strategic storytelling around core next generation technologies including AI, Robotics, Quantum, Biosciences and more, she has raised the significance of marketing qualified federal and commercial business development leads. She has also helped transform SRI’s business model by facilitating a deal with Nomura Holdings to establish the Nomura - SRI Innovation Center (NSIC) to focus on bringing Silicon Valley technology to corporate Japan. She mentors SRI Ventures’ early stage portfolio companies, helping them to develop their business strategy and preparing them to go to market.

Before joining SRI International, Reenita was VP of Content for hibooks (previously known as Otto Radio) a San Francisco based media tech startup. Here she developed a strategy and operations program resulting in the successful acquisition of the company by Ximalaya FM, China’s biggest player in the audio space. She has worked for large public and private media companies. At Radio Television Hong Kong, she developed, produced, anchored and syndicated Money For Nothing, Hong Kong public media’s first financial news morning show and received several accolades for her award-winning cultural storytelling show, Asian Threads. She then went on to work for Bloomberg Media as a key member of the core startup team taking Bloomberg’s first Asian broadcast operations to air. She has also contributed to media including the New York Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, the South China Morning Post, BBC and more.

Prior to the above, Reenita founded, built and sold Ayoma Inc., a healthcare company. Over a series of eight years, she built the valuation of Ayoma to US $10 million and developed the company’s product, B2B and B2C sales, marketing and retail strategy. Since then, she has served as an executive level strategist and coach for tech, retail and media/entertainment startups. She has provided advisory services for several entrepreneurs, helping their companies raise funding, go to market and build brands. She has also served on two non-profit boards: Integrated Brilliant Education Trust and Operation Santa Claus, and two private company boards - Ayoma Inc. (early stage) and Vidyut Metallics Pvt. Ltd. (late stage).

Educated at Williams College and the University of Hong Kong, Reenita speaks fluent Hindi and conversational Japanese. She has authored seven books (on health, personal finance and fiction) by leading publishers including Chronicle Books, Pan Macmillan India, Harper Collins India, and Hachette. She has won several storytelling awards including the Crossword Readers Choice Awards, the New York Festivals International Radio Programming Awards, and RTHK Radio 3 Awards.

Tech professional by day and fiction writer by night, Reenita does not miss an opportunity to dive into the heart of a good story. She is currently working on her next novel and developing Chapter by Episode, a digital publishing platform focused on stories with diverse themes.

7 Questions with Krishna Kumar Nair

7 Questions with Krishna Kumar Nair

Name: Dr. Krishna Kumar Nair

Current title: Director - Curriculum & Courses

Current organisation: International School of Counselling and Holistic Studies

Krishna is a mental health and wellness care entrepreneur, psychologist, mindfulness master coach, researcher, counsellor, personal coach, professional trainer, startup specialist and consultant serving people across 25+ countries.

He is an expert trainer in psychology, mindfulness-based interventions, entrepreneurship, career counselling, emotional intelligence, behavioural wellness, NLP, career coaching, counselling skills, alternative therapies and digital marketing. Also, he is a chartered advisory member for various organisations and serves as a personal consultant for more than a dozen top businesses professionals hailing from different geographical pins.

7 Questions with James Rosebush

7 Questions with James Rosebush

Name: James Rosebush

Current title: Chairman

Current organisation: Epic Trust

35 years of leading strategic plans for growth in global corporations and family offices as well as serving as a senior official in the Reagan White House.

7 Questions with Julie Garland McLellan

7 Questions with Julie Garland McLellan

Name: Julie Garland McLellan

Current title: CEO

Current organisation: The Director's Dilemma

My joy in work is to help boards and directors to maximise their impact, focus on the things that matter, and build great organisations.

Over the past 23 years I have worked directly with individuals and boards, as well as through leading institutions such as the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Governance Institute of Australia, to empower great governance that radically improves organisation performance.

I don’t just preach the latest governance theory (although I know it well): I have served on 18 Boards, with experience of organisations in the resources, engineering, utilities, infrastructure and not-for-profit sectors. In that time, I have led two turnarounds, two IPOs and one relisting, many refinancings and restructures, and developed strong boards that face and conquer challenges.

I am a qualified professional speaker on boardroom issues and in demand for courses, seminars and conferences, combining personal anecdotes, humour, world-class expertise and my extensive experience as a director to engage, stimulate and educate.

As the author of six books and many training materials for company directors, I am an acknowledged expert on resolving a wide range of complex governance issues. My newsletter 'The Director's Dilemma' reaches readers in 33 countries. You can subscribe for a free copy at www.directorsdilemma.com.

I am best known for The High Impact Board Program. This five step program focuses on individual directors and the board to apply the four principles that underpin real board success to drive real organisation performance. The program has helped boards to build and sustain high performance and lasting impact.

I can also help individual directors and chairs with personalised mentoring based on real board experience. If you need help with your board’s performance review, strategy engagement, or a delicate boardroom problem that is hampering your progress please give me a call on +61 411 262 470.

7 Questions with Terrie Anderson

7 Questions with Terrie Anderson

Name: Terrie Anderson

Current title: Non Executive Director

Current organisation: Stewart Manning

Terrie Anderson is considered a Thought Leader in Enterprise Digital Leadership and Cyber Security Strategy, a futurist who is passionate about the benefits of IT/OT convergence and effective Workplace of the Future as business differentiators. She believes passionately in the need for disruptive strategies, especially digital, for companies wishing to thrive beyond 2021.

She has extensive senior leadership experience, and outstanding track record in building businesses in Enterprise Solutions and Software.Terrie is considered a trusted adviser to many Board Members and Digital Leaders globally.
She is the author of One Minute More - The Human Connection; 999 Legendary Selling for the 21st Century - and many more books and articles.
People are Terrie's passion, and she believes great human talent is undervalued by many organisations. She loves adventure travel and philosophy, and is partial to a great wine and a large motorbike, but not at the same time!

7 Questions with Brett O Riley

7 Questions with Brett O Riley

Name: Brett O’Riley

Current title: Chief Executive Officer

Current organisation: EMA

Experienced Board member and CEO working in the spaces between the private and public sector, leveraging a long career in both and 20 years in the tech sector in New Zealand, Australia and internationally.

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