Panelists - The Conference Board

Panelists

The CEO Perspective

Steve Loranger, CEO, ITT Corporation
Steven R. Loranger is Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of ITT Corporation, a position he has held since 2004. He brings extensive multi-industry leadership experience to the role and has led ITT through four consecutive years of record growth.

Prior to ITT, Loranger was Chief Operating Officer at Textron Inc., overseeing a $10 billion portfolio of aircraft and defense, fluid systems, automotive, and industrial business. Before Textron, Loranger spent 21 years at Honeywell and its predecessor AlliedSignal. He also served as President and CEO of Honeywell's $5 billion aerospace engines, systems and services business and before Honeywell merged with AlliedSignal in 1999, Loranger held various positions, including president and CEO AlliedSignal Engines, president of the Bendix Truck Brake Group, and vice president of the Commercial Auxiliary Power Unit.

He is a member of the Business Roundtable and serves on the boards of FedEx Corporation, the New York Hall of Science, the National Air and Space Museum and the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation.

Loranger is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Colorado. He served as an officer and pilot in the United States Navy from 1975 to 1981.

Ernst Lieb, President and CEO, Mercedes Benz USA
Ernst Lieb became president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) in September 2006. As head of MBUSA, Lieb has overall responsibility for the sales, marketing and service of Mercedes-Benz and Maybach vehicles, parts and accessories in the U.S. market. MBUSA has a network of approximately 343 dealers throughout the U.S.

His career with the company began in 1975 in the former Daimler-Benz organization. He started as a spare parts specialist and in 1985, he joined Mercedes-Benz Canada where he held various positions culminating in his promotion to President and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Canada in 1995. Under his leadership, sales of Mercedes-Benz passenger cars in Canada more than tripled.

In April 2003, German-born Lieb became President and CEO of DaimlerChrysler Australia/Pacific Pty. Ltd., his most recent post. During that time, Lieb continued his involvement with the North American market by serving on the board of Mercedes-Benz Canada.

Joseph R. Marciano, President & CEO, Oce Business Services
In March 2004, Joseph R. Marciano was appointed President and CEO of Océ Business Services, Inc. Océ's document process management outsourcing company. In this role, he has overseen a significant expansion of the company's client base and an evolution of Océ Business Services into more comprehensive, advanced document process management technology, products and services.

In 1980, Mr. Marciano originally joined Océ Arkwright, Inc. subsidiary, an international developer, manufacturer and marketer of digital imagining supplies for Océ and other brand owners. In 1985, he was named Corporate Controller and in 1988 became Vice President of Operations and member of the Management Committee. In 1994, he relocated to Chicago first to become Group Vice President, and then President of the Océ Imaging Supplies.

In 1998, Mr. Marciano was named President of Arkwright, and integrated the manufacturing, logistics and R&D of Océ Imagining Supplies with Arkwright. In this role, he provided the strategic direction and leadership to guide Arkwright through a turnaround following a major shift in customer/product diversification.

Mr. Marciano holds a bachelor's of science degree in business administration from Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

Randy Dearth, President and CEO, Lanxess
Randall S. Dearth was named president and chief executive officer of LANXESS Corporation in July, 2004. Previously he had been president and CEO of Bayer Chemicals Corporation since 2003. Mr. Dearth joined Bayer in 1988 as a development chemist in the automotive coatings development laboratories. He then transferred to Bayer's Automotive Technical Center in a market development role.

From 1993 to 1997, Mr. Dearth was on assignment in Germany, where he was responsible for market development in Europe and Asia. Upon returning to the United States, he managed the coatings and colorants resins business before being named director of the division's monomers and adhesives business. Among other positions, he also was head of the global powder coatings business group.

Mr. Dearth sits on the American Chemistry Council Board, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, and the United Way of Allegheny County. Most recently, he was named Chairman of the Warhol Museum Board and was appointed to Calgon Carbon Corporation's Board of Directors. In 2007, Mr. Dearth was recognized as an emerging top CEO with a Pittsburgh Business Times Diamond Award.

Mr. Dearth holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Hiram College, and a master's degree in polymer science and engineering from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Michael ("Mike") F. Walsh, CEO, Lexis Nexis US Legal Markets
Mike Walsh, President and CEO of LexisNexis' U.S. Legal Markets, is responsible for 6,000 employees and one-billion dollars in revenue. Mr. Walsh joined LexisNexis three years ago as senior vice president of Global Strategy and Business Development.

In 2005, LexisNexis CEO Andy Prozes tapped Mr. Walsh to assist him transform U.S. Legal Markets after observing Mr. Walsh's with helping to oversee the $775 million strategic acquisition of risk-management leader Seisint. Mr. Walsh's leadership helped LexisNexis continue to evolve its image, from a research provider to a true partner able to help law firms digitally manage every aspect of their business, resulting in equally powerful financial results. Mr. Walsh is a strategist who has the hands-on people skills needed to be a catalyst of change, which has proven critical to his success at LexisNexis. LexisNexis has come to regard U.S. Legal Markets as something of a global laboratory for the future.

Mr. Walsh joined LexisNexis from Home Depot in 2003, where he was the company's Chief Global Strategist responsible for strategy and business development for Home Depot Supply, the company's new growth business division. In this role, Mr. Walsh recognized new opportunities by assisting the $90 billion giant better capitalize upon the professional builder market. During his time at Home Depot; Mr. Walsh honed his skills as a strategist and negotiator by helping to create a number of tactical and "game-changer" deals.

During the dot-com era, Mr. Walsh co-founded Infirmation.com, an online portal for lawyers, which generated the fourth-highest traffic in its category. Infirmation.com was quickly sold to FindLaw.com, which was the number one U.S. legal portal at that time. At FindLaw.com, Mr. Walsh served as Vice President of Strategy.

Prior to founding Infirmation.com, Mr. Walsh was a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, working with tax-law specialists Weil, Gotshal and Mangeson on the General Electric business. In this role, he restructured GE of India and supervised the acquisition and restructuring of GE Capital of Sovac.

Mr. Walsh earned his JD from Harvard Law School and received his BA in History and Political Science from Yale University. He is a Colorado native who enjoys snow-boarding. Mr. Walsh resides in Larchmont, New York, with his wife Sheila and their two children, Sophie and Devon.

Jon Spector, CEO, The Conference Board
Jonathan Spector is Chief Executive Officer of The Conference Board, Inc., the global research and business membership group. The Conference Board, which connects over 2,000 enterprises in 60 nations, is the most widely-cited private source of business intelligence. Publisher of the Consumer Confidence Index, the Leading Economic Indicators and other reports on economic trends and best management practices, The Conference Board convenes some 20,000 executives annually in council, conference and meeting programs.

Mr. Spector joined The Conference Board after serving as Vice Dean of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was responsible during his tenure for the significant growth and strategic repositioning of the school's Executive Education activities, and also for strengthening Wharton's involvement in book publishing, in globalization, and in collaborations across the university.

He began his career and spent 20 years at McKinsey & Company, where he was elected a Senior Partner. He founded and managed the Firm's Taipei office, and helped lead McKinsey's North American electronics practice until his departure to become the Chief Executive of two startup technology companies.

Mr. Spector has served as a Trustee of Wesleyan University, as Chairman of the March of Dimes in Massachusetts, and is a member of the National Board of Advisors and the National Volunteer Leadership Council of the March of Dimes. He earned his BA in Math/Economics from Wesleyan University, and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

The Inner Circle

Ellen R. Dulberger, Ph.D, Vice President, Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance, IBM
Dr. Dulberger joined IBM in 1974 as a research assistant in IBM's Corporate Economics Department and focused for almost 20 years on microeconomics, particularly the impact of changes in the economic environment on the IT industry and IBM's business. During that time, she completed her Ph.D, and her dissertation on quality adjusted prices for computer processors was used internally in econometric models of demand for IBM's products, and adopted by the U.S, Department of Commerce to improve measures of investment in the National Income Accounts. She has served on several external advisory committees of statistical agencies as well as expert panels.

In 1993, Dr. Dulberger shifted her focus to business strategy, starting with becoming the first strategist for the then young outsourcing business. Over the next 13 years, she held various strategy positions, mostly in services, with many special projects including "intelligent infrastructure" which was the precursor to on demand.

Since the fourth quarter of 2006, she has been in her current, newly created position, Vice President, Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance, where she is charged with building IBM's ERM capabilities which will impact the business by improving the likelihood of good outcomes and reducing the likelihood of bad ones.

Kathleen Edmond, Chief Ethics Officer, Best Buy
As chief ethics officer for Best Buy, Kathleen Edmond develops and directs global vision for the company's ethics and business conduct and is a key partner in the corporate social responsibility work. She helped build the company's ethics office after joining the company in 2002.

With a background in employment law, a passion for teaching and a solid retail background, Edmond's foray into ethics was a result of her own enthusiasm for the topic. Best Buy's ethics function originally came together to assure compliance with the requirements of Sarbanes Oxley, but Edmond grew the focus to be one of creating and sustaining an ethical business culture. Ultimately, she wants to help create a culture which rewards employees for thoughtful deliberation on issues involving ethics, integrity and corporate responsibility.

Edmond oversees a matrixed structure which engages leaders from all over the world, and at all levels of the organization (from store leadership to the board of directors). She determines appropriateness of companywide ethics and corporate responsibility initiatives, oversees the company's global confidential ethics reporting system, communicates Best Buy's ethics and corporate responsibility standards to all employees and partners, provides counsel to leadership, and partners in problem resolution.

Prior to her role as ethics officer, Edmond held employment law positions with Best Buy and Musicland, retail entertainment software giant of the 80s and 90s. She served as adjunct professor for the University of St. Thomas (business ethics) and William Mitchell College of Law (law). She also has extensive experience in social work and human resources/business management.

A Minneapolis native, Edmond earned her juris doctor from the University of Minnesota (cum laude), master's degree in business ethics from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., and her bachelor's degree from Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minn. (cum laude). She serves on the boards of directors for Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA) and Penumbra Theater.

Eve Dreher, Communications Adviser to the CEO, Coors Brewing Company
Leading the corporate communications team at Coors Brewing Company during a period of unprecedented growth, Eve Dreher has built a reputation as an accomplished communications strategist. She currently directs the corporate communication function for Coors, the third largest U.S. brewer with annual sales of over $3 billion, and a subsidiary of MolsonCoors. In this role, Dreher serves as senior communications counsel to Coors' CEO on the company's message and vision. Her expertise is in understanding the complex challenges associated with strategic positioning and executive messaging. Her responsibilities include the development and implementation of internal and external communications strategies as well as crisis communications and issues management. As the member of the company's Corporate Responsibility Steering Committee, Dreher advises the executive team on utilizing strategic communications to protect and enhance the company's reputation.

Prior to joining Coors, Dreher was vice president of corporate communications for First Data Corporation, a Fortune-200 company. During her tenure, Dreher provided strategic advice for critical communications with audiences including the First Data Board of Directors, senior executives, top leadership and 30,000 employees worldwide.

Jeffrey Garten, Professor, Yale School of Management
Jeffrey E. Garten became the Juan Trippe Professor of International Trade, Finance and Business at the Yale School of Management on July 1, 2005 and was dean of the School prior to that.

Garten currently serves on the boards of directors of the Aetna Corporation and CarMax Inc. He is also on the international advisory boards of the Toyota Motor Company and the Chicago Climate Exchange.

From 1993-1995, Garten was the undersecretary of commerce for international trade in the first Clinton administration, where he was deeply involved in the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations and in helping the U.S. and in laying the groundwork for Beijing's entry into the WTO.

From 1979 to 1992 he worked on Wall Street as a managing director of Lehman Brothers and, later, the Blackstone Group. He also served on the White House Council on International Economic Policy in the Nixon administration and on the policy planning staffs of Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Cyrus Vance in the Ford and Carter administrations.

He is the author of A Cold Peace: America, Japan, Germany and the Struggle for Supremacy (Times Books, 1992); The Big Ten: The Big Emerging Markets and How They Will Change Our Lives (Basic Books, 1997); The Mind of the CEO (Basic Books, 2001); and The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders (Harvard Business School Press, 2002). His work has appeared in Business Week, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Newsweek, the Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Affairs.

Garten holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College, 1968, and a Ph.D. from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, 1980, where he specialized in international economics and international organizations.

James S. Greene, Vice President, Cisco Systems
Jim Greene is vice president of the Global Financial Services (FS) Practice in the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG). He brings 25 years of global FS experience to Cisco, including 21 years with Accenture, where his responsibilities were spread evenly across North America, EMEA, and Asia Pacific. At Accenture, he served as managing partner of the Global FS Business and Technology Strategy Practice and ran the global payments business. Greene also directed Accenture's $2 billion western region, and was a charter member of the company's Global Thought Leadership Program.

After Accenture, Greene spent three years with CapGemini, responsible for their $2 billion U.S. global financial services business.

While at Accenture and CapGemini, Greene supervised more than 200 assignments for global financial services companies. The scope of his expertise includes large and complex systems development and integration, business and technology strategy, CRM and channels strategy, and mergers and acquisitions.

Before joining IBSG, Greene was president of global financial services for TeleTech Holdings, a 40,000-person public company and the leader in customer contact management BPO.

Greene received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA from the University of Santa Clara. He participates regularly at conferences focused on financial services and technology, as both a contributor and speaker.

K R (Lan) Lakshminarayana, Chief Strategy Officer, Wipro Technologies
Lakshminarayana (Lan) is the Chief Strategy and M&A Officer of Information Technologies (IT) Businesses of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT).

Prior to this, Lan was CFO of the IT businesses. At an annualized Revenue of over $4 billion, Wipro's IT businesses constitute about 90% of Wipro Limited's Revenues and 95% of its profits.

Earlier, Lan was the Corporate Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations for Wipro. Corporate Treasury manages various critical functions in Wipro including foreign exchange risk in excess of $4 billion and cash flows of over $2 billion. Wipro was ranked No 1 in Investor Relations among Tech companies in Asia by the sell side in survey conducted by Institutional Investor publications in 2004 as well as in 2005. Lan was also ranked the No 1 IR representative among Tech companies in Asia in both the surveys.

Being a part of Wipro since 1995, Lan has participated in Wipro's growth over the last decade. Further, his experience in various functions including Quality, Resource management and Management Assurance, has provided him an in-depth understanding of the various business issues. Lan is also a certified Six Sigma Black Belt. Prior to Wipro, Lan worked in a Financial Institution as well with a multinational in chemicals industry.

Linda Barrington, Research Director, The Conference Board
Linda Barrington is Research Director and Labor Economist at The Conference Board.

Barrington directs workforce and human resources research as Research Director of the Management Excellence Program of The Conference Board. Her current research projects include benchmarking top executive challenges, and assessing trends surrounding the maturing workforce, U.S. workforce readiness, and other workforce issues.

Barrington has authored several Conference Board publications including: CEO Challenge, 2007: Top 10 Challenges; The 2007 Report on Top Executive Compensationâ€”Key Findings; Are They Really Ready to Work? Employer Perspectives on New Workforce Entrants; Weights and Measures: What Employers Should Know about Obesity; Looking for Employees in All the Right Places; and Does A Rising Tide Lift All Boats? America's Full-Time Working Poor Reap Limited Gains in The New Economy

Barrington was a delegate-at-large to the 2005 Decennial White House Conference on Aging and has appeared on numerous news programs including National Public Radio's All Things Considered, NBC Nightly News and Bloomberg.

Before joining The Conference Board, Barrington was on the faculty of the Economics Department of Barnard College of Columbia University. There she published several articles on gender economics, poverty measurement and economic history. Barrington received her B.S. in economics from the University of Wisconsin, and her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois.

Moderator

Jan Hopkins, President, NY Economics Club
Jan Hopkins is the President of The Jan Hopkins Group, a communications consulting company finding ways for clients to deepen relationships with high-net-worth clients. The firm also offers media and communications coaching and video production. Jan is also President of the Economic Club of New York. Jan is a former Head of Client Communications and a Managing Director at The Citigroup Private Bank. Jan Hopkins joined Citigroup after a long career in broadcast news. Jan was an anchor and a correspondent at CNN for 19 years. Jan contributed to Lou Dobbs' Tonight and was the substitute anchor for Mr. Dobbs. Jan also hosted "Street Sweep" on CNN and CNNfn; "Movers with Jan Hopkins" on CNN; and "Managing with Jan Hopkins". Jan's live coverage of the stock market crash in 1987 helped CNN win its first Peabody Award. Jan received a lifetime achievement award from the Women's Economic Roundtable in 2002. In 2004 Jan won an Emmy for her contributions to the series "Exporting America" on Lou Dobbs Tonight. Before CNN, Jan Hopkins worked at CBS News in New York and at ABC News in New York. Jan was a Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University Schools of Journalism and Business. Jan has a Master of Arts Degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and a Bachelor of Arts Degree cum laude from Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio. Jan was a member of the Hiram College Board of Trustees and the National Board of Girl Scouts USA. Jan serves on the Advisory Board of the Knight Bagehot Fellowship at Columbia University Journalism School. She is a corporate director of Bostwick Labs of Richmond, Va.