Directors to watch 2015.

• Author: Chase, Scott
• Position: DIRECTORS TO WATCH

This years class of Directors to Watch faces the traditional array of threats to good governance and hoard best practices but is also confronting new challenges as well, such as cybersecurity and the aggressiveness of activist investors.

An anniversary is always occasion for reflection. This, the 10th anniversary compilation of Directors to Watch, is part of an ongoing effort by Directors & Boards to promote and support diversity in the boardroom. When we began this series in 2006, that support already had a long history with the journal. An article published early in the tenure of our editor, Jim Kristie, was titled "Finding the Blue Chip Woman Director." The year was 1981.

Back then, boards were typically "male, pale, and stale," an epithet that has not softened with the passage of time. Boards have always been challenged, at one level or another, with new risks and new opportunities arising at what seems to be an increasing pace. In 2006, for example, many boards had not ever faced a sustained financial crisis. Sarbanes, Oxley, Dodd and Frank were names on a congressional roster, not markers in a legislative and regulatory redefinition of director service.

The first few editions of Directors to Watch included a mix of genders, colors, races, and experience. Over the past several years, the series has been devoted to female directors. The idea is to showcase women directors of an age and level of experience that makes it a safe bet that they will continue to contribute to and help define the corporate governance agenda for publicly traded and privately held companies.

The Directors to Watch Class of 2015 faces the whole traditional array of threats to good governance and board best practices. In addition to topics like executive compensation, enterprise risk management, protection of corporate reputation, and social responsibility, our honorees are facing new challenges such as cybersecurity and the rise of activist shareholders and investors.

Next year Directors & Boards celebrates its 40th anniversary of continuous publication and service to boards everywhere. We plan to continue to drive the topic of gender diversity on boards. The studies have been made, the statistics are in, and the facts can't be disputed--having a variety of experience, perspective, background and gender makes for enhanced governance and better results across the board.

For this upcoming 40th anniversary edition, the Directors to Watch feature will revisit some of our past honorees and report back on where they are today and how they have moved the ball for board best practices. Until then, take a look at these dozen superstars who are our choices at mid-decade.

Cheryl Mayberry McKissack

Director, PrivateBancorp Inc., Deluxe Corp.

Cheryl Mayberry McKissack is the chief operating officer and president of JPC Digital for Johnson Publishing Company, best known for its flagship publication, Ebony. She is responsible for managing media operations including technology development, production, media sales, marketing, business development and all functions of the digital business unit, JPC Digital.

Mayberry McKissack has more than 14 years of corporate board experience and a special expertise in corporate governance. She serves on the board of PrivateBancorp, where she is chair of the corporate governance committee and vice chair of the compensation committee. She also serves as a director of Deluxe Corp. and serves on the finance and compensation committees. She is actively involved in the Chicago community and has held positions on numerous nonprofit boards. She is currently a board member for the University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago Library Foundation, Shedd Aquarium, and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.

Mayberry McKissack enjoyed a successful 23-year corporate career in operations and technology, including serving as the worldwide senior vice president and general manager for Open Port Technology. Before that, she was vice president for the Americas and a founding member of the network systems division for 3Com (formerly U.S. Robotics).

In 2012, she was recognized as one of the "17 Black Internet Pioneers" by ROOT.com, a division of the Washington Post. A published author, her next book, Entrepreneurial Selling: Mastering Selling Skills for Growth, is scheduled for distribution in 2016.

Cybersecurity and the Boardroom: "Cybersecurity is moving to the top of public board agendas as directors evaluate risks caused by the evolution of technology and the Internet. No longer are cybersecurity conversations relegated to information technology reviews or simply the responsibility of chief information and technology officers. The rise of cyber attacks on Fortune 500 corporations demonstrates that no company is immune from these occurrences. We should be encouraged to protect our companies. Directors will become increasingly involved in the review of overall risk practices, business continuity planning, readiness for an attack, insurance protection, and disclosures of material risks and incidents as we continue to navigate the rapidly expanding world of cybersecurity."

Gail A. Lione

Director, Sargento Foods Inc., Badger Meter Inc., F. Dohmen Co.

Gail A. Lione is a senior executive with extensive intellectual property, business strategy, and corporate governance experience. She is a Senior Fellow of the Governance Center of The Conference Board and serves as a director of three companies: Sargento Foods Inc., where she is on its audit committee; Badger Meter Inc., as lead director and a member of its compensation and corporate governance committees; and the F. Dohmen Co., as an audit committee member.

For more than 23 years, Lione served as general counsel of three significant companies in three different industries. Most recently, she was executive vice president, general counsel, secretary and chief compliance officer of Harley-Davidson Inc. and also served as president of Harley-Davidson Foundation. At Harley-Davidson, she was a member of the executive leadership team and managed all worldwide legal affairs, governance and compliance for the company, including for its financial services subsidiary and its trademark holding company. She also served as vice president of human resources for two years.

For the last three years, Lione has been an adjunct professor of intellectual property law at Marquette University Law School and will begin teaching in that capacity at Georgetown University Law School later this year. From 2000 to 2010, Lione served on the board of the National Association of Manufacturers and this year was elected a member of the American Law Institute.

She is on the board of trustees of the University of Rochester and serves on its audit and human resources committees, and is on the board of Dog Tag Bakery Inc., in Washington, D.C. In Milwaukee she is on the boards of the YMCA, the Milwaukee Ballet, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. In 2011 she was appointed as a member of the MillerCoors Inclusion and Diversity Advisory Council in recognition of her commitment to inclusion.

Integration Is Key to Corporate Governance and Sustainable Growth: "Strategic planning oversight and risk management review are compelling and critical roles for corporate boards. Too often they are treated separately and not integrated. Key to successful business strategy oversight is integration of enterprise risk management into that strategy. True integration is really the only path to excellent corporate governance and the only road to sustainable company performance."

Maureen Breakiron-Evans

Director, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., Heartland Payment Systems Inc.

Maureen Breakiron-Evans is an experienced corporate board member, a qualified SEC Audit Committee Financial Expert and an NACD Board Leadership Fellow (2012). She is a dynamic former CFO who has been responsible for driving the transformation of financial and technology operations and the development of enterprise risk management programs for a variety of clients and Fortune 500 employers. She is a Certified Public Accountant with an active license.

Breakiron-Evans serves on the boards of Cognizant Technology Solutions, Heartland Payment Systems, and Stetson University, chairing each of their audit committees, and is a member of the advisory board of the Center for Corporate Governance at Drexel University. She has previously served on the boards of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh and ING Direct, and on the risk, investment, nomination and governance, and compensation committees of various boards. She holds a BBA degree from Stetson University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MLA from Stanford University, as well as a certification in cuisine from Cordon Bleu in Paris.

Breakiron-Evans retired as chief financial officer of Towers Perrin in 2008. Before that, she was the general auditor and enterprise risk manager at CIGNA Corp. She was executive vice president and CFO at Inovant LLC, the Visa entity that was created to develop and operate Visa's payment and transactions systems globally.

She also held several executive positions at Transamerica Corp. She spent the first 16 years of her career in public accounting serving clients in the insurance, banking, financial services, health care, professional services, hospitality, and real estate industries, ultimately serving as an audit partner with Arthur Andersen in San Francisco.

Staying Abreast of Critical Technology Developments: "Rapid technological advances, particularly in the areas of social, mobile, analytics and cloud, are...