Directors’ College, now in its twenty-seventh year, is the nation’s premier executive education program for directors and senior executives of publicly traded firms. The program addresses a broad range of problems that confront modern boards, including the board’s role in setting business strategy, CEO and board succession, crisis management, techniques for controlling legal liability, challenges posed by activist investors, boardroom dynamics, international trade issues, the global economy, and cybersecurity threats.
Directors’ College awards recertification credits to directors working toward maintaining their NACD Directorship Certification®.
W.A. Franke Professor of Law and Business, Stanford Law School; Senior Faculty, Rock Center for Corporate Governance; Co-Founder and Director, Financial Engines
Joseph A. Grundfest ’78 is a nationally prominent expert on capital markets, corporate governance, and securities litigation. His scholarship has been published in the Harvard, Yale, and Stanford law reviews, and he has been recognized as one of the most influential attorneys in the United States. Professor Grundfest founded the award-winning Stanford Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, which provides detailed online information about the prosecution, defense, and settlement of federal class action securities fraud litigation. Professor Grundfest previously served as a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and on the staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors as counsel and senior economist for legal and regulatory matters.
Managing Director, Rock Center for Corporate Governance
Amanda is a corporate governance expert with unique insight into emerging challenges facing corporate boards and the most critical issues on which institutional investors are focused. Since 2015, she has served as Co-Director and the lead operator for Stanford University’s Directors’ College, the nation’s oldest and most prominent education program for board members of publicly traded companies. In addition, Amanda plans the content for other key Rock Center programs, including the Stanford Institutional Investors’ Forum, a semi-annual convening of corporate governance thought leaders from public pension funds, large asset managers, and Fortune 100 companies.
Amanda has published articles on board composition and has co-authored a law school textbook, Leadership for Lawyers. As a recognized expert on board refreshment, gender equity issues, and corporate governance, she is frequently asked to speak on these topics to audiences of board members, business leaders, and academics. She has previously served on the boards of directors of the Thirty Percent Coalition and the Silicon Valley Directors’ Exchange, and she is currently a member of the advisory board to the California Partners Project’s Women on Boards Advisory Council.
After clerking for Judge Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Amanda practiced white-collar criminal defense and conducted internal investigations as an attorney at Covington & Burling and then at Orrick. She has a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Order of the Coif, and an A.B. in Economics, magna cum laude, from Princeton University.
The Rock Center for Corporate Governance was founded at Stanford University in 2006 with a generous donation from Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock, with the belief that by examining what constitutes good corporate governance and how to measure it in new and more rigorous ways, we could shape the future of corporate governance. For more information, please visit the Rock Center website.
The Rock Center Affiliates contribute through sponsorship and program input on an annual basis and support sustained scholarship, policy, relevant research and teaching, and program development that bridges the gap between academia and the rest of the world. You can find more information about the Affiliate Program here.
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