The Forum for Corporate Directors to Honor Five Directors at the 18th Annual Director of the Year Awards

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On Monday, January 14, 2013, the Forum for Corporate Directors (FCD) announced the five recipients of the 2013 Director of the Year Awards to be recognized at the 18th Annual Director of the Year Awards and dinner held at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, California. Mike Mussallem, chairman, chief executive officer and board member of Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, will serve as special guest host for the evening.

“These individuals have been instrumental in helping their companies find opportunities, and in the case of Mr. Nieto, hope, in these times of unprecedented global economic uncertainty. We are pleased to recognize each of them as Director of the Year Honorees in 2013”

According to John Della Grotta, chair of FCD and a partner at Paul Hastings LLP, “FCD has established a tradition of recognizing directors who have helped influence and guide companies and organizations to achieve growth and corporate excellence while maximizing market valuation. During these 18 years, 99 individuals have been honored by the organization. The five individuals and the award categories for which each will be recognized in 2013 are:

• Jacqueline K. Barton, Ph.D. – Corporate Growth and Development. Dr. Barton has been a member of the board of The Dow Chemical Company since 1993 and chairs the board’s environmental, health, safety and technology committee. Dr. Barton also serves as the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. She is the recipient of the 2010 National Medal of Science from President Obama, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on scientists.
• Leslie Stone Heisz - Corporate Governance. Ms. Heisz currently serves as an independent director for three public companies. At Ingram Micro, Inc., where she chairs the board’s audit committee and serves as a member of the board’s executive committee; HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc., where she chairs the board’s investment and finance committee and is a member of the board’s nominating and corporate governance committee; and Towers Watson & Co., where she serves on both the audit and the risk committees of the board. Prior to her retirement in 2010, Ms. Heisz was a Managing Director of Lazard Freres & Co. and a Managing Director with Wasserstein Perella.
• Jacqueline Kosecoff, Ph.D. – Corporate Leadership and Service. Dr. Kosecoff serves as an independent director for four public company boards and one non-profit board: athenahealth, Inc., where she serves as a member of the board’s compensation committee and is a member of the board’s nominating and corporate governance committee; CareFusion Corporation, where she is a member of the board’s audit committee; Sealed Air Corporation, where she serves as a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee and the organization and compensation committee; STERIS Corporation, where she serves as chair of the compliance committee and as a member of the nominating and governance committee. Dr. Kosecoff also is a director for the Medical Center Board of the City of Hope. She is a Managing Partner of Moriah Partners, LLC, a private equity firm focused on health services and technology, a Senior Advisor to Warburg Pincus LLC and a member of SAP’s Advisory Board..
• Scott A. McGregor – Enhancement of Economic Value. Mr. McGregor is President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of Broadcom Corporation. In that role, he is responsible for guiding the vision and direction for the company’s growth strategy. He also is an independent director of Ingram Micro, Inc. serving as chair of the board’s governance committee and as a member of the board’s audit committee. Mr. McGregor is also a member of the board of the Broadcom Foundation, a non-profit public benefit corporation.
• Augie Nieto – Corporate Citizenship - Mr. Nieto served as an independent director with Quest Software, Inc. until September 30, 2012, when Quest was acquired by Dell. Mr. Nieto served on the Quest special committee which managed the sale. Mr. Nieto also serves as an independent director to DynaVox, Inc., a public company for which Mr. Nieto serves as a member of its board’s compensation committee. Mr. Nieto serves as industry operating advisor to North Castle Partners, a private equity firm, and as Chairman of Octane Fitness. He also serves as the Chairman of the ALS Therapy Development Institute, a leading non-profit biotechnology and drug research company. During his tenure as chairman, Mr. Nieto has raised over $42 million for ALS research. Mr. Nieto also serves as Chief Inspiration Officer for “Augie’s Quest,” an ALS research fund-raising organization which has raised an additional $35 million in research funds.

“These individuals have been instrumental in helping their companies find opportunities, and in the case of Mr. Nieto, hope, in these times of unprecedented global economic uncertainty. We are pleased to recognize each of them as Director of the Year Honorees in 2013,” Della Grotta said.

In addition to its Director of the Year Awards, FCD creates opportunities for directors, CEOs and other senior executives to share ideas with their peers as well as with nationally-recognized experts in finance, governance and regulatory oversight in a series of breakfast and dinner meetings. Among its signature events are the Governance Outlook which forecasts the emerging governance developments for the coming year and its merger and acquisitions and private equity series of programs which examines the most recent and relevant transactions in the region with the directors, senior management and finance experts who participated in the transactions.

For more information about FCD, please call 949.375.3323 or visit the Forum for Corporate Directors website at www.fcdoc.org.

About the Forum for Corporate Directors

Founded in 1991, FCD is a non-profit business organization committed to promoting the highest standards of corporate governance and to increasing the effectiveness of directors, CEOs and senior level executives by anticipating important issues facing companies in today’s global economy and presenting peer-to-peer forums to share ideas and key strategies.

The mission of FCD is generously supported by its Leadership Sponsors: RiechesBaird and Stradling, Yocca, Carlson and Rauth, P.C.; Legacy Sponsors: Grant Thornton LLP; KPMG LLP; Microsemi Corporation; and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; Heritage Sponsors: Bank of America MerrillLynch; Deloitte; Ernst & Young LLP; Latham & Watkins; Lockton Companies; Marsh Inc.; Mercer LLC; Paul Hastings LLP; and Union Bank; Sustaining Sponsors: Abbott Medical Optics Inc.; Haskell & White LLP; McGladrey LLP; The Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California Irvine; Rhythm Interactive, Inc.; Woodruff Sawyer & Company; and Supporting Sponsors: BDO USA, American Vanguard Corporation, LLP; California State University Fullerton Mihaylo College of Business & Economics; Dorsey & Whitney LLP; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP; Local Corporation; Mindspeed Technologies, Inc.; Newport Corporation; QLogic Corporation; and Quality Systems Inc.