Corie Barry served as CEO of Best Buy, a leading provider of consumer technology products and services, for seven years.

As the second-longest-tenured CEO in Best Buy’s history, Corie guided the company through the pandemic, inflationary pressures, and rapid shifts in consumer technology while strengthening its competitive position and advancing its long-term growth strategy. Over her 27-year career, she held a variety of leadership positions and played a key role in shaping and executing the company’s Building the New Blue strategy and related transformation.

A Minnesota native, Corie earned bachelor’s degrees in accounting and management from the College of Saint Benedict, where she serves on the Board of Trustees. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Domino’s Pizza.

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.

As Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing, Communications and Customer Experience Officer at Travelers, Lisa Caputo oversees marketing, digital, customer experience, corporate communications, creative services and research. She serves on the Management and Operating Committees and Travelers Foundation Board.

Lisa spent 11 years at Citigroup managing global marketing, public affairs and community relations as Executive Vice President, Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs. She was also Chairman and CEO of Women & Co.

Before Citi, Lisa held senior executive marketing and communications positions at Disney and CBS. She was Deputy Assistant to President Bill Clinton and Press Secretary to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and worked in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Lisa is a Best Buy Board Director and graduated with a B.A. from Brown and an MSJ from Northwestern.

Dr. Maria Azua Himmel is an Independent Director of Pan-American Life Insurance Group, serving on the Audit and Finance Committees, and a former Fortune 50 technology executive. She previously held senior leadership roles at Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, Barclays, and IBM, leading global organizations across financial services, technology, data, cybersecurity, and enterprise transformation. Her board expertise includes audit and finance oversight, enterprise risk management, AI governance, cybersecurity, data governance, regulatory compliance, and digital transformation. Dr. Himmel holds a Doctorate in Computer Science and an MBA, is an NACD Certified Director, author of The Social Factor, holder of 51 U.S. patents, and a Women in Technology International Hall of Fame inductee.

Sophia Hudson is a corporate partner in the New York office of Kirkland and Ellis, LLP and leads the firm’s global Capital Markets practice. Most recently recognized as a 2023 Law360 MVP, one of the legal industry’s rarest and most prestigious awards, Sophia’s experience spans numerous industries, public clients and private equity sponsors.

Deborah Lifshey is a managing director at Pearl Meyer, where she specializes in advising clients on compensation matters from a legal perspective including securities disclosure, taxation and corporate governance issues, negotiation contracts, and reasonableness opinion letters.

Prior to joining Pearl Meyer, Deborah practiced at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, where she specialized in executive compensation, ERISA matters, and corporate transactions, and at Holland and Knight, where she specialized in employment litigation matters. She has authored and/or co-authored the following works: “The New Qualified Plan Minimum Distribution Rules,” The New York Law Journal (Winter, 1996); “IRS Changes Rules Through Field Service Advice – This Time on FICA and ESPP,” Journal of Taxation of Employee Benefits (January/February 2000); Perquisites, Executive Compensation and Benefits Handbook, BNA Publications (2002); Negotiating and Drafting Employment Agreements, Executive Compensation and Benefits Handbook (2004); and Executive Compensation: The Perspective of the Compensation Consultant, Chapter 15 of Corporate Governance: Law and Practice (2005). Deborah is a frequent speaker and panelist on disclosure and taxation issues, and is regularly quoted on executive compensation best practices.

She is a graduate of the Industrial and Labor Relations School at Cornell University and the University of Florida College of Law, and served as a federal clerk for the Honorable Judge Susan H. Black on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Deborah is a member of the New York and Florida Bars.

Based in Stamford, Laura Mantoura is a key member of the Board & CEO Advisory Partners at Russell Reynolds Associates. She advises companies on CEO and C-Suite progression, board succession and refreshment, corporate governance, board evaluations and IPO preparedness.

Laura brings nearly two and a half decades of experience spanning Fortune 100, family-influenced and private-capital-backed companies. She spent over thirteen years at Bain & Company in talent development and management consulting roles and began her career in JPMorgan’s Investment Banking M&A division.

Laura holds an MA in modern and medieval languages from the University of Cambridge. She also serves as an Advisory Board member for the NACD New York Chapter’s Nominating & Governance Committee.

Sharon Podstupka is a managing director at Pearl Meyer with more than 25 years of consulting experience. She advises boards and senior leadership teams on executive compensation, governance, and strategic communication, with a particular focus on translating complex pay and leadership decisions into clear, effective stakeholder communications. Sharon works with organizations across the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors on executive compensation disclosure, employee education, and communication strategies that connect pay and performance with business and talent priorities. Prior to joining Pearl Meyer in 2013, she spent 17 years with Towers Perrin/Towers Watson, where she led executive compensation communication services across the Americas. She is a frequent speaker and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Business.

Jennifer Poersch is a leading policy and political advisor for clients in areas ranging from telecom, transportation, and defense to health and wellness. For more than 16 years, Jennifer has been a key advisor to Members of Democratic Senate Leadership and Committee Chairmen, including Sen. Chuck Schumer. She managed finance operations for two Presidential campaigns and dozens of Senate and gubernatorial races across the nation. This unique political background enables her to frame a wide-range of issues into winning strategies before Members of Congress. An experienced policy advocate, Jennifer has developed and led strategies resulting in successful appropriations funding efforts, winning competitive federal grant awards, approval of foreign military sales, securing favorable agency regulatory actions, and enacting federal land transfers. Her previous employment includes serving as a Senior Advisor to Sen. Patty Murray at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and senior political advisory roles to numerous Senators including Jack Reed and Tom Udall.

Jennifer graduated from Baker University with a B.A. in Journalism and Political Science. She resides in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband and two daughters.

David Polyansky is a strategist and communications counselor with professional experience in the political, public affairs, sports, entertainment, and legal sectors. Over the course of his career, he has been known for taking on the toughest of challenges and helping many of his clients defy great odds.

He has previously worked on five Republican presidential campaigns and helped elect or re-elect some of today’s brightest GOP stars, including Senator Joni Ernst (campaign), Senator Ted Cruz (campaign and Super PAC) and Senator Eric Schmitt (Super PAC). For his work during the historic 2014 election cycle, he was awarded “Strategist of the Year” honors by the American Association of Political Consultants (“AAPC”).

At the conclusion of the 2016 election cycle where he operated as a senior advisor for communications and politics on the Cruz for President campaign, Polyansky went on to serve as Chief of Staff to Senator Ted Cruz where he guided an office representing over 28 million Texans through numerous pivotal moments, including influencing several major components of the historic “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” of 2017 and passage of several Cruz-sponsored bills and amendments, including the “Student Opportunity Amendment” which expanded 529 savings plans to include K-12 tuition.

A six-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps, in 2004 he took a sabbatical from his legal career to join Texas’ 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines for duty in Al Anbar Province, Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Polyansky is a graduate of the University of Houston Law Center and was previously a practicing commercial litigator in Texas. While spending much of his time on the road, he happily returns to his home in Houston where he resides with his wife, Kirsten, and two children.

KPMG Advisory Principal with more than 20 years of experience leading transformative risk, compliance, and security initiatives for Fortune 100 companies. As an industry leader and trusted C-suite advisor, Lisa equips business leaders with the insights and confidence needed to make informed decisions, navigate complexity, and build stakeholder trust. She specializes in risk management, cybersecurity, compliance, and AI Trust in the Technology, Media and Telecom sector. Lisa serves as co-Chair of KPMG’s Network of Women (KNOW) and is the co-founder of the Women of Risk and Cyber Community.

Lisa serves on the Board of Directors of Young Playwrights’ Theater, a Washington, DC-based organization devoted to inspiring young voices through the arts. Her commitment to professional excellence, developing others, and community service reflects her passion for building trust and driving positive change.

Christina Thomasserves as Deputy Director and Chief Advisor on Disclosure, Policy, and Rulemaking in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance. Prior to joining the SEC in January 2026, Ms. Thomas was a partner in the capital markets practice at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. In private practice, Ms. Thomas represented public companies on capital markets transactions, SEC disclosure and compliance, and corporate governance matters. She previously served as counsel to SEC Commissioner Elad L. Roisman and was detailed to the Office of International Affairs and Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Ms. Thomas started her legal career as an attorney-adviser in the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance. Ms. Thomas received her J.D. from New York Law School and her B.A. from Fordham University.

Allison Wein is a corporate partner in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Allison focuses her practice on mergers and acquisitions and other significant corporate matters. Her experience spans the range of M&A activity, including significant cross-border and contested transactions and activism defense.

Allison was named a “Rising Star” by Law360 in 2020, recognizing her as one of five outstanding merger and acquisition lawyers in the nation under the age of 40. Crain’s New York Business recognized Allison in its 2025 “Notable M&A Dealmakers” list, which honors those with the vision and execution powering today’s dealmaking. Lawdragon recognized Allison as one of “500 Leading Global Entertainment, Sports & Media Lawyers” in 2025. In 2019, she was named an M&A “Rising Star” by The Deal in The Dealmaker Quarterly. Allison has also been recognized for her work in mergers and acquisitions by IFLR1000 and Lawdragon and for her transactional work in the technology industry and the media and entertainment industry by The Legal 500 United States and The Hollywood Reporter.

Janet Wong is an accomplished business executive and public company board director serving the boards of Valvoline, Inc. and TWFG, Inc. In 2022, NACD named her to its Directorship 100™. In 2023, Board Prospects recognized her as a Top 30 Asian American Board Director in the U.S. In 2024, Directors & Boards named her as a Women Public Company Director to Watch.

She served as a senior partner with KPMG, a global professional services organization.  Janet is a licensed CPA and a NACD Certified® Director. She completed the Corporate Director Certificate Program at Harvard Business School and holds Certificates in Cyber-Risk Oversight from Carnegie Mellon University and the U.S. Secret Service Cyber-Board Academy.  She has served on the Program Faculty at Stanford Directors’ College for the past four years.

Abigail Yoder is a U.S. Equity strategist for J.P. Morgan Global Wealth Management.

As part of the Global Equity team, Abigail helps develop the Private Bank’s U.S. equity views and identifies and markets stockspecific and thematic investment opportunities across U.S. equities. Abigail joined J.P. Morgan in 2014 and prior to joining the Equity Strategy team in 2020, Abigail was a Research Analyst for a multi-asset
income-oriented Strategy within the Private Bank and a market strategy research analyst within Asset Management. Before joining J.P. Morgan, Abigail worked at Evercore Partners conducting buy-side equity research and supporting lead portfolio managers in managing the firm’s large cap equity portfolio as well as individual client portfolios.

Abigail is frequently featured in major media outlets including CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg and Axios. Abigail graduated with honors from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Art History and was the captain of the women’s tennis team. She is an Advisory Board member for Johns Hopkins Athletics.

She is also a CFA ® (Chartered Financial Analyst®) charter holder.