Board Member Inc.

Joan Susie is the CEO of Global Navigation, the international affiliate of Corporate Board Member . She served as publisher of Corporate Board Member , which launched in 1998 under her oversight, and senior vice president of Bank Director , a sister magazine which she helped found in 1990. She is also a member of the board of directors for Board Member Inc., the parent company for both magazines.

Roderick A. Palmore Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Compliance and Risk Management Officer Rick Palmore has overall responsibility for the company's global legal activities, corporate ethics and compliance, and corporate security. He is chair of the company’s Enterprise Risk Management Committee. Rick joined General Mills in 2008. In his previous position at Sara Lee, he served as executive vice president and general counsel. He had joined Sara Lee in 1996 as deputy general counsel. Rick was promoted to senior vice president, general counsel, and secretary in 1999, and was named an executive vice president in 2004. Rick has made a broad impact on the legal profession through his leadership of “Call To Action,” an initiative he helped to launch with his peers to improve minority representation and mobility within law firms that provide services to major corporations. Earlier in his career, Rick was a partner with two major Chicago law firms, where he focused on business litigation. He joined Wildman, Harrold, Allen, and Dixon in 1983 as an associate and was elected a partner in 1986. He subsequently moved to Sonnenschein, Nath, and Rosenthal as a partner in 1993. Previous to that, Rick spent three years as assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Rick earned his undergraduate degree in economics from Yale University and his law degree from the University of Chicago. He is currently on the boards of both the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Charles M. Elson is the Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., Chair in Corporate Governance and the Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. He is also "Of Counsel" to the law firm of Holland & Knight. He formerly served as a Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida from 1990 until 2001. His fields of expertise include corporations, securities regulation and corporate governance. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School, and has served as a law clerk to Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III and Elbert P. Tuttle of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, the Cornell Law School, and the University of Maryland School of Law, and is a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Elson has written extensively on the subject of boards of directors. He is a frequent contributor on corporate governance issues to various scholarly and popular publications. He served on the National Association of Corporate Directors' Commissions on Director Compensation, Director Professionalism, CEO Succession, Audit Committees, Strategic Planning and Director Evaluation, was a member of its Best Practices Council on Coping With Fraud and Other Illegal Activity, and presently serves on that organization’s Advisory Council. He was Vice Chairman of the ABA Business Law Section’s Committee on Corporate Governance and a member of its Committee on Corporate Laws. Additionally, Professor Elson served as an adviser and consultant to Towers Perrin, the international human resource management consultants, a director of Circon Corporation, a medical products maker; Sunbeam Corporation, the consumer products manufacturer; Nuevo Energy Company, an independent oil and natural gas producer, the Investor Responsibility Research Center, a non-profit corporate governance research organization, Alderwoods Group, an international death care services provider and is presently, a member of the Board of Directors of AutoZone, Inc., the national automobile parts retailer, HealthSouth Corporation, a healthcare services provider. 

Gloria Santona is the Chief Legal Officer of McDonald’s Corporation, the world’s largest quick service restaurant company, with more than 31,000 restaurants in 118 countries. In this role, she leads McDonald’s worldwide legal, compliance, regulatory and corporate governance functions. As part of McDonald’s senior leadership team, Ms. Santona is also actively involved in the company’s strategic direction and growth. Ms. Santona has fostered the legal department’s diversity efforts and on-going engagement in pro-bono legal services, which have garnered the McDonald’s Legal Department awards in recognition of the legal and educational services it has provided to underserved communities. Ms. Santona joined McDonald’s as an attorney upon her graduation from the University of Michigan Law School, and subsequently held a number of management positions in the legal department. She became the company’s corporate secretary in 1997 and has served as general counsel since 2001. She is a director of Aon Corporation, serving on its Audit and Governance Committees and as Chairman of its Compliance Committee. In addition, Ms. Santona serves on the Boards of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago, and as a trustee of Rush University Medical Center. Ms. Santona is a member of several professional organizations and is a frequent speaker and panel member on a variety of diversity, legal, compliance and corporate governance topics. She has received numerous awards, including being named as one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business Magazine and earning the Women with Vision Award from the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois.

L. William Seidman is a shareholder of Board Member Inc. and the publisher Bank Director magazine. Seidman was chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the first chairman of the Resolution Trust Corp. He served as an assistant to President Ford for economic affairs and was co-chair of the White House conference on productivity during the Reagan administration. Seidman is a member of the National Advisory Board of Bank Compensation Strategies Inc. and has been a director of Prudential-Bache Funds, United Bankcorp of Arizona, Phelps Dodge, and the Conference Board. He was chairman and director of the Detroit branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and served as dean of the College of Business at Arizona State University. His most recent book, Full Faith and Credit, was published in 1993 by Random House. Seidman holds an A.B. from Dartmouth (Phi Beta Kappa), LL.B. from Harvard Law School, and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan, where he graduated with honors.

Corporate Board Member interviews boardroom movers and shakers. Paul C. Winum, Ph.D., managing director and practice leader, CEO Continuity Services for RHR International Company, discusses the board's ever important role of CEO succession and how to effectively plan for the continuity of company leadership.

William C. Tomson, age 72, who became a Director in June 1988, is the Vice Chairman of Board Member, Inc. Mr. Tomson has been with the firm since 1995. Board Member, Inc. publishes Bank Director and Corporate Board Member magazines.