About Hawkamah: Advancing Governance and Strong Institutions

Nadia Zainuddin is currently the General Manager and Head of Corporate Governance at the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC). She focuses on raising the corporate governance practices and standards of listed companies as well as capital market intermediaries in Malaysia, working closely with local and international corporate governance stakeholders. Nadia leads the formulation and implementation of the SC’s immediate and long-term corporate governance measures which include, enhancements to the Listing Requirements, Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance, spearheading the use of AI by the SC to monitor corporate governance disclosures by listed companies, advocating for board diversity particularly the participation of women on boards and putting in place the framework for sustainability reporting by listed companies. Nadia also represents the SC and Malaysia in local and global policy making platforms on corporate governance.

In 2014, Nadia was seconded to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France as a Consultant at the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, Corporate Affairs Division. She was involved in efforts to promote corporate governance in Asia; including the development of the OECD Southeast Asia Corporate Governance Initiative to establish effective corporate governance frameworks and support ASEAN capital market integration in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Nadia graduated from the International Islamic University Malaysia with a Bachelor of Economics in 2004, and a Master of Economics in 2006, where she was also an active debater. In 2009 she was awarded a Chevening Scholarship by the Foreign Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom to pursue an MSc in Corporate and International Finance at Durham University, UK.

Karina serves on the board of Italian power grid operator Terna S.p.A., where she is on the Controls, Risks & Sustainability Committee and the Nominations, Governance & Scenarios Committee. She also serves as Ambassador & Founding Chairman of the Climate Governance Initiative. Until recently, she served on the boards of Oil & Gas major Eni S.p.A., where she chaired the Sustainability & Scenarios Committee, and was a member of the Remuneration and Controls & Risk Committees; of the CFA Institute, home of the professional qualification for investment management professionals; of Viridor, a KKR portfolio company active in the waste management sector; and of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a consulting firm specialising in sustainable business management. 

Since the passage of the Paris Agreement at CoP21 in 2015, Karina has been working to build a global network for fellow board directors to share experiences, engage with technical experts and stakeholders, access specialised training, and help to drive the adoption of effective Paris-aligned climate transition strategies in the boardroom. Under the auspices of the World Economic Forum, she co-founded the Climate Governance Initiative (CGI), home of the WEF Principles for Effective Climate Governance for Non-Executive Directors.  The CGI operates in over 70 countries through a network of 30 national and regional Chapters in APAC, EMEA, the Americas and Africa, often in collaboration with local institutes of directors.  

Previously, Karina had a 25-year career in Finance, latterly running the Governance and Sustainable Investment activities of UK asset manager F&C Investments*. 

* now Columbia Threadneedle Investments

One of the forerunners of corporate governance in Brazil, Sandra Guerra has served as a board member and chairperson of boards of directors since 1995. Her experience includes acting on the boards of listed, closed, family-controlled and state-controlled companies as well as of non-profit organizations both in Brazil and abroad. With more than 26 year's experience in corporate governance, she was one of the founding members of the Brazilian Institute of Corporate Governance (IBGC), where for four years, from 2012 to 2016, she was the chair of the board. On two occasions, she was also a member of the board of directors of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN). She was also board director of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), from 2017 to 2019. Ever since she completed her Master's degree in Business Administration at FEA-USP (2009), her research has been focused on the board of directors. Certified as a Board Member by the IBGC and as a Mediator by the CEDR-Center for Effective Dispute Resolution (United Kingdom). In 2017 she published the book “A Caixa-Preta da Governança. Conselhos de Administração Revelados por Quem Vive Dentro Deles”, published by Editora Best Business in Brazil and which is now in its 4th edition. The book – The Black Box of Governance. Boards of Directors Revealed by Those Who Inhabit Them - was updated and translated to English and published by Routledge in September 2021.

Stephen Davis, Ph.D. is a senior fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance and chairs the Advisory Board of Hawkamah, based in the UAE. He was founding chair of the international Oversight Committee, which monitors the global proxy voting industry’s Best Practices Principles for Shareholder Voting Research, and he co-founded Stewardship Professionals e.V. (StePs). Davis is a co-organizer of the Capital+Constitution project sponsored by the Brookings Institution and States United Democracy Center. He pioneered the field of international corporate governance in 1989 when he created the Global Shareholder Services unit at the IRRC, in Washington, DC. Davis has been a nonresident senior fellow in governance at Brookings, where he co-directed the World Forum on Governance; a senior advisor on governance at Teneo; and outside advisor to the Nissan Special Committee on Improving Governance. From 2007-2012 he was executive director of the Yale School of Management’s Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, and from 2012-2022 was associate director of Harvard Law School’s Program on Corporate Governance. He has served as an advisor to the corporate governance project at Alfaisal University School of Business in Riyadh and a Distinguished Visiting Researcher at the American University in Cairo. Davis is co-author of What They Do With Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us, and How to Fix It (Yale University Press, 2016), and The New Capitalists: How Citizen Investors are Reshaping the Corporate Agenda (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), named by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Australian Financial Review as one of the best business books of 2006. US SEC Chair Mary Schapiro named Davis to the Commission’s first Investor Advisory Committee. He has been chair of the board of Hermes EOS and a trustee of ShareAction. Davis is a co-founder of the International Corporate Governance Network, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, GMI Ratings (now part of MSCI), and Global Proxy Watch newsletter. Davis earned his doctorate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and completed undergraduate studies at Tufts and the London School of Economics. Other books include Apartheid’s Rebels: Inside South Africa’s Hidden War (Yale University Press, 1987), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Chris Hodge is an independent advisor on governance and regulation who has worked with organisations including The Chartered Governance Institute (the professional body for company secretaries), the Institute of Directors in the UK and the International Corporate Governance Network. Chris also advises regulators and stock exchanges in emerging markets on corporate governance standards and reporting.

He is a member of Hawkamah’s Advisory Board. For ten years, Chris was Director of Corporate Governance at the Financial Reporting Council in the UK. In that capacity he was responsible for developing and promoting the UK Corporate Governance Code, and for introducing the first national stewardship code for investors in the UK. Chris established, and chaired until 2015, the European Corporate Governance Codes Network which shares information and good practice among the bodies responsible for codes in 28 European countries. Chris Hodge also chaired the Global Stewardship Codes Network, which brings together bodies from 20 markets.

Mak Yuen Teen is Associate Professor of Accounting at the National University of Singapore, where he specialises in corporate governance. He holds first class honours, master and PhD degrees in accounting and finance.

Prof Mak has served on key corporate governance committees which developed and revised the code of corporate governance for listed companies in Singapore. He is currently a member of the Corporate Governance Advisory Committee established by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Prof Mak also served on the Charity Council in Singapore and chaired the subcommittee which developed and revised the code of governance for Singapore charities. He was also the Singapore expert in the development of the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard and Ranking, an initiative of the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum.

Prof Mak served as a member of the audit advisory committee of the UN Population Fund and as a member of the audit advisory committee of the UN Women for consecutive six-year terms. He was a former member of the Governing Council of the Singapore Institute of Directors and is currently a member of the Advisory Council of the Vietnam Independent Directors Association.

Prof Mak conducts training in corporate governance for directors, regulators and industry professionals in both financial institutions and listed companies. He has led numerous research projects focusing on corporate governance in Singapore and Asia, and more recently on sustainability-related topics such as integration of ESG factors into executive remuneration, sustainability governance structures, board oversight of climate risks and opportunities, and materiality assessment of ESG factors. He has edited 11 annual volumes of Singapore, Asia and international case studies on corporate governance, and is a regular commentator on  corporate governance in the local and international media.

He was recognised by the Securities Investors Association (Singapore) with the Corporate Governance Excellence Award and as a CG Pioneer by the Singapore Institute of Directors for his contributions to corporate governance in Singapore, and by the Minority Shareholders Watchdog Group (Malaysia) for his contributions to corporate governance in the region.