Advisory Board

John spent 42 years with The Ogilvy Group, an advertising and marketing services company, the last five years of his career as Worldwide CEO. He retired in December 2021. 

John joined Ogilvy in 1979 as a summer intern in Los Angeles. He quickly rose through the account management ranks on accounts such as: Universal Studios, Mattel Toys, and Mattel Electronics (Intellivision video game system). In 1983 John was transferred to Ogilvy Chicago to lead several business lines of Sears Roebuck (Automotive, Computer systems, and Home appliances).  

In late 1985, John was promoted to General Manager of Ogilvy Thailand, where he led one of the Ogilvy network’s fastest growing and most profitable business units. While in Thailand he was the senior director responsible for the American Express account across Southeast Asia. In 1988, John was promoted to Country Manager for Ogilvy Singapore, responsible for Ogilvy’s advertising, direct marketing, public relations, and sales promotion businesses. 

In October 1992, John transferred to Ogilvy New York to lead the American Express account globally, one of Ogilvy’s five largest worldwide clients. For the next 15 years, John led a growing portfolio of Ogilvy’s most valued global clients including: BP, Siemens, DuPont, Kraft, IBM, SAP, Kimberly-Clark, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Ford, SC Johnson, Unilever, Samsung, and many more. As 
Chairman of the Ogilvy Global Brand Community (the network’s 50 largest clients), he was responsible for Ogilvy’s client service delivery on over $1 billion in annual revenue. 

In 2009 John was promoted to lead Ogilvy North America, the largest operating region in the network. In 2016 John was promoted to CEO of the Ogilvy Group globally, across 50+ markets, five core lines of business, 15,000+ people, and $2.5 billion in annual revenue. 

Throughout his career, John partnered closely with CEOs and their leadership teams on enterprise, product, and service branding needs. He has personally led the work on some of Ogilvy’s most famous creative branding campaigns including: “Membership” for American Express, “Beyond Petroleum” for BP, and “Miracles of Science” for DuPont. 

John now lives full time in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He serves on the Boards of Jupiter Medical Center, Dynasty Financial Partners, and buildOn, a non-profit organization based in Stamford, CT dedicated to supporting at risk high school students in the country’s most challenged urban neighborhoods through service-learning programs. BuildOn also builds schools through local 
community partnerships in some of the world’s most impoverished countries. 

In addition, John now chairs the Board of Advisors for Y-SIM, “The Program on Stakeholder Innovation and Management” at the Yale School of Management (SOM).

Claus Aagaard is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Mars, Incorporated; a role he was. appointed to in 2016. Claus is responsible for global Finance, Strategy, Corporate Development, Digital, and Shared Services for Mars.

Claus has been with Mars for more than 20 years, spanning multiple business segments and geographies. Claus has an extensive background in finance, strategic planning, and mergers and acquisitions, and he has been instrumental in the significant business and portfolio transformation Mars has undergone in recent years, including rapid expansion into the veterinary and diagnostics space as well as acquisitions like KIND Snacks and the proposed Kellanova transaction.

Claus champions long-term value-creation where profit and purpose go hand-in-hand, and he has been a driving force in integrating financial and non-financial metrics into the Mars enterprise strategy and remuneration principles as well as its Sustainable in a Generation Plan.

Prior to joining Mars, Claus spent 11 years with the international diary cooperative, Arla Foods, where he ultimately served as Finance Director for the U.K.

Claus is a member of the board of Grundfos, a global leader in energy-efficient water solutions for homes, buildings, industries, utilities and agriculture. Claus also serves on the board of Bread for the City, a Washington D.C. non-profit organization.

Claus holds a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and a Masters degree in Finance and Accounting from Herning Business School. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his wife and four children and enjoys living an active lifestyle.

Kenneth I. Chenault is the Chairman and a Managing Director of the venture capital firm, General Catalyst. As a managing director of the firm, he focuses on investing in fast-growing companies that have the potential to become large, fundamental institutions. He also provides invaluable guidance to portfolio companies, particularly to those with an eye towards global markets and responsible innovation, as they scale their teams and products. As chairman, Ken leverages his renowned leadership abilities and experience to continue to evolve General Catalyst into a formidable and enduring firm.

Prior to joining General Catalyst, Ken was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Express Company, a position he held from 2001 to 2018. He joined American Express in 1981 as Director of Strategic Planning and served subsequently in a number of increasingly senior positions, including Vice Chairman and President and Chief Operating Officer, until his appointment as CEO. Under his leadership, American Express built one of the world’s largest customer loyalty programs – Membership Rewards – and earned global recognition as a leader in customer service. Upon Ken’s retirement from American Express, Warren Buffett, the company’s largest shareholder stated, “Ken's been the gold standard for corporate leadership and the benchmark that I measure others against.”

Ken is recognized as one of the business world’s experts on brands and brand management. He has been honored by multiple publications including Fortune Magazine, which named him as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in its inaugural list in 2014 and, most recently, in 2021. TIME celebrated Ken together with Ken Frazier in the TIME100 Most Influential People of 2021 list for their corporate and social activism –specifically, for mobilizing hundreds of corporate leaders to advocate for equitable voting rights in the U.S., and for co-founding OneTen, a coalition of leading executives coming together to upskill, hire and advance one million Black Americans over the next 10 years into family-sustaining jobs with opportunities for advancement.

Ken serves on the boards of Airbnb, Berkshire Hathaway, Chief, Guild Education, and the Harvard Corporation. Ken is on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Advisory Council for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Human Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute Advisory Council at Stanford University. He also serves on the board of trustees for NYU Langone Health, and as co-chair of Concordance’s First Chance campaign to end the cycle of incarceration. Ken holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA in history from Bowdoin College. He has also received honorary degrees from several universities and awards from a wide variety of civic, social service, and community organizations.

He and his wife, Kathryn, live in New York City, and they have two sons.

Samuel J. Palmisano is the Chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise, a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of the contemporary corporation, the management science in a globally interconnected world. The CGE was established in 2013 to help educate societal stakeholders – as well as leaders from the private sector, public sector, and academia – on the globally integrated economy and its promise for a better future.

From January 1, 2003, through December 31, 2011, Samuel J. Palmisano was chairman, president and chief executive officer of IBM. He was chairman of the Board from January through September 2012 and served as a senior adviser to IBM until his retirement on December 1, 2012. Under his leadership, IBM achieved record financial performance, introduced Watson and its Smarter Planet agenda.

Mr. Palmisano began his career with IBM in 1973 in Baltimore, Maryland. In a 39-year career with the company, he held leadership positions that included senior vice president and group executive of the Personal Systems Group, senior vice president and group executive of IBM Global Services, senior vice president and group executive of Enterprise Systems and president and chief operating officer.

Mr. Palmisano is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University. Among his many business accomplishments, Mr. Palmisano was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Johns Hopkins University in 2012 and from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2005. In 2006, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the London Business School. Mr. Palmisano has received a number of business awards, including the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished Business Leadership Award in 2009 and the inaugural Deming Cup, presented in 2010 by the W. Edwards Deming Center for Quality, Productivity and Competitiveness at Columbia Business School. In 2013, Mr. Palmisano was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his many accomplishments during his successful career at IBM, as well as for his personal commitment to French-American friendship. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as co-chair of the Council on Competitiveness’s National Innovation Initiative.

Mr. Palmisano was the Vice Chair of the Presidential Commission focused on enhancing national cybersecurity under President Obama. Prior to that, he and Ambassador Negroponte co-chaired the task force on Defending an Open, Global, Secure, and Resilient Internet for the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr. Palmisano is a member of the Board of Directors for Bloomberg Philanthropies. In addition, he has founded Palmisano LLC, which partners with Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital and is focused on investments in emerging technology segments.

Dr. Lisa T. Su is chair and chief executive officer of AMD. Prior to serving as president and CEO, she was the chief operating officer responsible for integrating AMD’s business units, sales, global operations, and infrastructure enablement teams into a single market-facing organization responsible for all aspects of product strategy and execution. Dr. Su joined AMD in January 2012 as senior vice president and general manager, global business units and was responsible for driving end-to-end business execution of AMD products and solutions.

Prior to joining AMD, Dr. Su served as senior vice president and general manager, Networking and Multimedia at Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (a semiconductor manufacturing company) and was responsible for global strategy, marketing and engineering for the company’s embedded communications and applications processor business. Dr. Su joined Freescale in 2007 as chief technology officer, where she led the company’s technology roadmap and research and development efforts.

Dr. Su spent the previous 13 years at IBM in various engineering and business leadership positions, including vice president of the Semiconductor Research and Development Center responsible for the strategic direction of IBM’s silicon technologies, joint development alliances, and semiconductor R&D operations. Prior to IBM, she was a member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments Inc. in the Semiconductor Process and Device Center from 1994 to 1995.

Dr. Su has bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has published more than 40 technical articles and was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers in 2009. In 2018, Dr. Su was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and received the Global Semiconductor Association’s Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award. In 2020, Fortune named Dr. Su #2 on its “Business Person of the Year” list, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Science, and received the Grace Hopper Technical Leadership Abie Award. In 2021, she was recognized by the IEEE with its highest semiconductor honor, the Robert N. Noyce Medal, and was appointed by President Biden to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. She has been a member of the board of directors of Cisco Systems, Inc., since January 2020 and also serves on the board of directors for the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Jane Sun is the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Trip.com Group Limited, a leading global travel services company. Ms. Sun joined the company as Chief Financial Officer in 2005 and subsequently served as Chief Operating Officer and Co-President before she was appointed to the position of CEO in 2016.

In her various senior leadership capacities, Ms. Sun led the company to significant growth in all aspects of the business, including an exponential increase in its market capitalization from USD 1 billion to more than USD 22 billion in 2023.

Ms. Sun has been widely recognized for her extensive experience in operating and managing online travel businesses, mergers and acquisitions, and financial reporting and operations, and has received numerous accolades in the industry.

Among the various awards and recognition, Ms . Sun was named one of Fortune's Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business for consecutive years and was also named in the Forbes World's Most Powerful Women List. Ms. Sun received an Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award and was appointed a member of the Asia Society Board of Trustees. Forbes named her one of the Emergent 25: Asia's Latest Star Businesswomen and one of the Most Influential and Outstanding Businesswomen in China. Ms. Sun was among Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business. During her tenure at Trip.com Group, Ms. Sun also won the Institutional Investor Awards for the Best CEO and the Best CFO.

Before joining Trip.com Group, Ms. Sun was head of the SEC and External Reporting Division of Applied Materials, Inc. from 1997. Prior to that, she was an audit manager at KPMG LLP in Silicon Valley, California. Ms. Sun earned her Bachelor’s degree (High Honours) from the business school of the University of Florida and completed her Master of Laws (LLM) degree at the law school of Peking University.

Joe Ucuzoglu is the Deloitte Global CEO, leading the largest professional services organization in the world. With more than 470,000 professionals and over $70 billion in revenue, Deloitte serves a broad cross-section of the largest corporations and governmental agencies around the world. 

Joe remains actively engaged with many clients as well as a range of external stakeholders, working to ensure that we are consistently leveraging the full breadth of Deloitte to deliver impactful results for clients and communities. He frequently speaks on a broad range of current issues facing the business community.

Joe is a member of the Business Roundtable, the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council, and the Board of the Yale School of Management’s Program on Stakeholder Innovation. He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Southern California. 

Joe received a BS in Accounting from the University of Southern California.