Brown, David: - The son of two bankers, David grew up listening to business problems around the dining room table-and learning how to solve them. Finding or creating solutions has been his passion ever since. Today, David is Canada's leading thinker, speaker, writer, and practitioner in the area of corporate governance. As executive vice president and the GSI team's lead consultant, David has helped countless organizations improve their governance and board effectiveness. He cares deeply about corporations and their innate capacity to do good as well as their inherent risk of doing bad. His life's work is helping leaders make better choices for themselves and everyone they touch. David has co-founded more than a dozen board governance education programs, including university-accredited certification programs, The Professional Director Certification Program(R), and the Directors College. Prior to joining Governance Solutions in 1995, David had a distinguished twenty-year career in Canada's financial services industry. As an insolvency specialist, he learned hard lessons about the necessity for good corporate governance-and how badly things can go in its absence. David holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Queen's University in addition to Chartered Director and Professional Director designations in corporate governance. He has served as an accredited faculty member of several universities, including the Universities of St. Michael's College, Toronto, Saskatchewan, and McMaster University. David has co-authored three books and written dozens of articles for publications on the topic of corporate governance. An avid college football fan, he spends every Saturday afternoon in the fall cheering on the Alabama Crimson Tide.