Accelerating Gender Parity on Today’s Boards

Karen is an Audit Partner and Office Managing Partner of KPMG Fort Lauderdale. She is responsible for the strategic direction and growth of the office and oversees market activities of more than 150 partners and professionals.

Karen has more than 35 years of experience serving a variety of healthcare organizations including several multi-hospital health systems, one of the nation’s largest public hospitals, as well as entities owned by private equity. She has helped clients with recapitalizations, debt restructurings, purchase accounting, and stock-based compensation.

Karen serves as Chairman of the Board and Lead Director of the Women Corporate Directors Foundation.

She earned a bachelor of science and master of accounting degree from the University of Florida.

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During her more than 30-year career at KPMG, Jackie has served as Lead Audit Engagement Partner, SEC Reviewing Partner or Account Executive for a variety of large global clients, both public and private. She has also served on both the KPMG LLP and KPMG Americas Ltd. Boards of Directors.

From April 2017 through September of 2020, she was the National Managing Partner – Audit Quality and Professional Practice and Americas Audit Quality and Professional Practice Leader, responsible for the strategic oversight of audit quality control and technical accounting.

Jackie is a board member of the Women Corporate Directors Foundation and the Aim Higher Foundation.

She received a bachelor of science in business administration from The Ohio State University.

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As the Vice Chair of Growth and Strategy at KPMG LLP, Lisa is responsible for leading KPMG’s Total Firm growth strategy, anticipating and responding to signals of change in the marketplace and aligning the firm’s investments in innovative new services and capabilities.

Previously Lisa served as the global lead partner for one of KPMG’s largest technology accounts and as the managing partner for KPMG’s San Francisco office.

Lisa has 30 years of professional experience with an extensive background assisting global organizations in identifying, understanding, measuring, and reporting business and technology-related risks, as well as performing financial and systems audits.

Lisa serves on the board of the Women Corporate Directors Foundation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Pepperdine University.

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Cynthia Brinkley is an experienced C-suite senior executive and board director recognized at the state and national level for her accomplishments in the corporate, public, educational and nonprofit sectors.

She has over 30 years of executive leadership experience at large, global blue-chip companies. At Centene Corporation, she served in several roles including President and Chief Operating Officer and Chief Administrative and Markets officer, where she oversaw the markets (P&L for the company), international operations, business integration activities, government relations and was responsible for the transformation efforts for Centene. Prior to Centene, she served as Chief Human Resources Officer(CHRO) for General Motors, where she led the GM post-bankruptcy team in transforming the corporation’s human capital model, developing its talent strategy, and in recruiting critical new talent to lead GM into the future. She began her career at AT&T(SBC) where she held various senior roles, including Senior Vice President of Talent Development and Chief Diversity Officer. In that role, she led the creation of AT&T University and as its first CDO, rapidly advanced AT&T’s recognition as a leader in diversity. She also served as President of AT&T/SBC for Missouri and Arkansas, and Area Vice President for the Los Angeles region.

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Kalpana leads KPMG’s US Financial Services Advisory line of business and serves as the Global Lead Partner on one of KPMG’s largest asset management clients. Kalpana served on the KPMG US and KPMG Americas Board from October 2017 to October 2021.

Kalpana has over 25 years of broad base advisory experience in aligning information technology strategy with business strategy and has assisted several large clients in the areas of large digital, technology and business transformations.

Kalpana has spoken on and written numerous articles on topics that include: Finance Transformation, How to Leverage Industry Disruptions to Enable your Business, Effective Governance over Emerging Organization Models, Cost Optimization in Today’s Challenging Economic Times, IT Enabled Transformation, and Emerging Global Destinations.

Kalpana is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and an Associate Chartered Accountant (ACA) in New Zealand and India. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in commerce from Madras University, India.

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Mary Beth Vitale is CEO and Principal for Pellera, LLC., a consulting firm that provides board training in cyber security and governance education to public, private and large not-for-profit firms.

Ms. Vitale currently serves on Luna Innovations (NASDAQ: LUNA) and G.E.H.A., a 501C9 VEBA association board. Formerly, she served on the board of Pareteum (TEUM) where she served as Chair of the board, Chair of Nominating and Governance. She was also a member of the Audit, Compensation and Strategy committees. She restructured the company and sold it in 2022.

She also served on the board CoBiz Financial, a $3.8 Billion publicly traded financial that was sold in 2018. She was Chair of Nominating and Governance and Risk and Audit committee.

Jennifer Reynolds is an accomplished executive and board member. Her more than 25-year career has spanned various areas of the financial services industry and has included senior roles in investment banking, venture capital, and global risk management working with multi-billion-dollar firms and M&A transactions.

She currently serves as CEO of Women Corporate Directors Foundation (WCD) the world’s largest network of women corporate board directors, with more than 2,500 members serving on more than 8,500 public and private boards around the globe. 

Jennifer serves on the board of BF&M Insurance Group Ltd, (“BFM.BH”, BSX); on the board of Agrinam Acquisition Corporation (“AGRI.V” TSX), on the board of the Canada Development Investment Corporation (“CDEV”); and on the board of Women’s College Hospital Foundation. She has served on or chaired multiple committees across boards, including, audit, compensation, nominating and governance, HR, and investments. Jennifer previously served on the board of Citibank Canada and was the Co-Chair of the UN convened Financial Centres for Sustainability Network (FC4S). Jennifer currently serves on the Advisory Council for the Canadian Institute of Sustainable Finance. 

Prior to joining WCD, Jennifer served as the President & CEO of Toronto Finance International (TFI), a public-private partnership which promotes and develops Canada’s financial services sector, nationally and internationally. Prior to joining TFI, Jennifer was the President & CEO of Women in Capital Markets (WCM), Canada’s largest industry association and advocacy group for women in the financial sector. Throughout these roles she worked on innovation, ESG, and DEI initiatives. Previously she held executive roles with multi-billion-dollar investment banks and asset managers such as OMERS, BMO, and Scotiabank. 

In 2015 and 2017, she was named a Women’s Executive Network (WXN) Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award Winner. Jennifer is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Women’s Leadership program, and she received her MBA from McGill University, as well as a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Economics and Political Science from McGill University. Jennifer also holds the Institute of Corporate Directors Designation, ICD.D