Best Practices for Engaging and Serving the Board of Directors

Kelly Carr is Associate General Counsel for Modigent, the Phoenix-based parent company to numerous specialty trade companies throughout the United States. Kelly focuses on Modigent's Mergers and Acquisitions as well as its Corporate Compliance, Employee Relations, and Corporate Contracting. She works alongside Modigent's CLO to advise and support operations, risk management, and corporate objectives. Until its acquisition in 2022, Kelly served as Chief Legal & People Officer for The Brandt Companies, a $600M MEP specialty construction contractor based near Dallas, Texas where she led Legal, Training, Human Resources, and Recruiting. Prior to joining Brandt in 2012, Kelly was a trial attorney with Jones Day in Dallas. She is a graduate of Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law. From 2018 to 2021, she served on the Board of the Construction Section of the Texas State Bar and the Construction Law Foundation Council. She is currently an advisory board member of Magnum Engineering and is a former member of The Hartford’s Construction Advisory Board, and Lockton’s Talent & Culture Advisory Council. She is a member of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. Kelly resides in Boulder, Colorado.

Rick A. Werner is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and co-chairs the firm's Capital Markets and Securities Practice. Rick represents issuers, investment banks and investors in a wide range of corporate transactions that include securities offerings, cross-border listings, venture capital financings and other forms of private equity investment, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and recapitalizations. Rick also advises clients on general corporate matters, securities compliance and reporting, and securities exchange compliance.

Rick's experience with public and private securities offerings includes initial and secondary offerings of equity and convertible securities, “at-the market” offerings, rights offerings, registered direct offerings and private investments in public equity (PIPEs). Rick also advises clients on alternative public offering transactions such as reverse mergers, de-SPACs, spin-offs and direct listings.

Tina Clark Beamon, Esq. is an attorney with over 20 years of experience advising organizations in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. She has deep legal and compliance expertise in the pharmaceutical space, with therapeutic area experience in oncology, rare disease, primary care, and consumer healthcare (OTC) products. She has proudly served on legal and compliance leadership teams supporting nine product/new indication launches over the course of her career.

Tina is the Chief Legal Officer and Chief Compliance Officer at Epikast, Inc., an organization providing outsources services to the pharmaceutical industry. Epikast is headquartered in NYC, with offices in Athens, Greece. Tina is responsible for building a legal and compliance department that will drive efficiencies and inspire confidence in customer organizations operating within a heavily regulated environment.

Prior to Epikast, Tina has held significant leadership positions in organizations of varying sizes and across the expanse of product lifecycles. This includes serving as Chief Compliance Officer at MEI Pharma, Chief Compliance Officer at Karyopharm Therapeutics, Executive Director, Compliance-Global Medical Affairs, R&D at Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Senior Counsel II, Oncology Business Unit, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.

Tina has received many professional honors including being selected to the 2023 Cohort of Women in Bio’s Boardroom Ready Program, Savoy Magazine’s Power 300-Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America. She is a former member of Chief, a former board member of the George W. Crawford Black Bar Association, and currently serves on the Advisory Board for University of Connecticut College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Law Council of Washington and Lee University School of Law.

Sharad Samy serves as the General Counsel and Secretary of Commonfund. He has extensive transactional and litigation experience, having served as the general counsel of two prominent investment management firms; as a partner of the international law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP; and as counsel to both plaintiffs and defendants in complex civil litigation and arbitration matters.

He has worked extensively in Connecticut, New York and the United Kingdom on matters involving jurisdictions in North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Sharad was a Judge Advocate for the U.S. Army Reserve from 1997 through 2008, having served in the Horn of Africa in connection with Operation Enduring Freedom, and he currently serves as a Major in the Connecticut Army National Guard. In addition to his professional activities, he is active in the veteran community, serving as a Trustee of the State of Connecticut Board of Veterans Affairs and as the Judge Advocate for Post 6933 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He is also active in the non-profit community, serving as a Director of the Karam Foundation, an aid organization supporting young Syrian refugees, as Treasurer of the Connecticut Bar Association, and as a director and pro bono volunteer for Lawyers for Children America.

Sharad was awarded the Game Changer Award from the Connecticut Law Tribune in 2020, the Modern 100 Governance Award by Diligent in 2019 and the Outstanding Veteran Volunteer Award by the Stamford Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 2018. He is a graduate of Columbia College with an A.B. in Political Science and of Columbia University Law School with a J.D. He is admitted to practice law in the State of Connecticut and the State of New York and is a solicitor in England and Wales.

John B. Meyer is General Counsel, Chief Privacy Officer and Corporate Secretary for Zeem Solutions, a leader in fleet electrification services and infrastructure. As part of Zeem Solutions’ senior leadership, John manages teams that oversee the company’s intellectual property portfolio, and provide pre-litigation dispute resolution, strategic legal advice and transactional support for Zeem Solutions’ “fleet-as-a-service” initiatives, procurement, and nationwide charging depot expansion efforts. He also serves as legal advisor and subject matter expert to the board of directors and senior management on data security and privacy regulations, policy and compliance, and leads the company’s data protection and privacy compliance programs.

John is a Certified Information Privacy Professional for both the US and Europe (CIPP/US, CIPP/E). He received his JD from the University of Missouri, and his Masters’ of Science in Cybersecurity Risk and Strategy from NYU’s School of Law and Tandon School of Engineering.