About Hawkamah

Nadia Zainuddin is currently the General Manager and Head of Corporate Governance at the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC). She focuses on raising the corporate governance practices and standards of listed companies as well as capital market intermediaries in Malaysia, working closely with local and international corporate governance stakeholders. Nadia leads the formulation and implementation of the SC’s immediate and long-term corporate governance measures which include, enhancements to the Listing Requirements, Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance, spearheading the use of AI by the SC to monitor corporate governance disclosures by listed companies, advocating for board diversity particularly the participation of women on boards and putting in place the framework for sustainability reporting by listed companies. Nadia also represents the SC and Malaysia in local and global policy making platforms on corporate governance.

In 2014, Nadia was seconded to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France as a Consultant at the Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, Corporate Affairs Division. She was involved in efforts to promote corporate governance in Asia; including the development of the OECD Southeast Asia Corporate Governance Initiative to establish effective corporate governance frameworks and support ASEAN capital market integration in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Nadia graduated from the International Islamic University Malaysia with a Bachelor of Economics in 2004, and a Master of Economics in 2006, where she was also an active debater. In 2009 she was awarded a Chevening Scholarship by the Foreign Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom to pursue an MSc in Corporate and International Finance at Durham University, UK.

Stephen Davis, Ph.D. is a senior fellow at the Harvard Law School Programs on Corporate Governance and Institutional Investors and chair of the Independent Oversight Committee overseeing the global proxy voting industry’s Best Practices Principles for Shareholder Voting Research. He co-chairs the Advisory Board of Hawkamah, the corporate governance institute based in the UAE; serves on the founding supervisory board of Stewardship Professionals e.V. (StePs); and is a co-founder of the Capital+Constitution project sponsored by the Brookings Institution and States United Democracy Center.

Davis pioneered the field of international corporate governance in 1989 when he founded the Global Shareholder Services unit at the IRRC, in Washington, DC. His Shareholder Rights Abroad: A Handbook for the Global Investor (1989) was the first study comparing corporate governance practices in top markets. Davis has been a nonresident senior fellow in governance at the Brookings Institution, where he co-directed the World Forum on Governance; a senior advisor on governance at Teneo; and outside advisor to the Nissan Special Committee on Improving Governance. From 2007-2012 he was executive director of the Yale School of Management’s Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance and Lecturer on the SOM faculty. Davis is co-author of What They Do With Your Money: How the Financial System Fails Us, and How to Fix It (Yale University Press, 2016), an Amazon bestseller in the US and UK among books on financial services, and The New Capitalists: How Citizen Investors are Reshaping the Corporate Agenda (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), named by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Australian Financial Review as one of the best business books of 2006. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Group on Active Investor Stewardship.

US SEC Chair Mary Schapiro named Davis to the Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee, and chair of its Investor as Owner Subcommittee. He has been nonexecutive chair of the board of Hermes EOS, the shareowner engagement arm of Hermes Pensions Management, the UK’s largest retirement fund, and a trustee of ShareAction, the London-based NGO focused on institutional investor accountability. Davis is a co-founder of many institutions that now comprise the global corporate governance architecture including the International Corporate Governance Network, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, Chairmen’s Forums in North America and South Africa, the Conference of Fund Leaders, the (US) Systemic Risk Council, GMI Ratings (now part of MSCI), and Global Proxy Watch newsletter, for more than 25 years the prime industry resource for ESG insights worldwide.

In the academic world, besides at Harvard and Yale, Davis has served as a visiting professor in corporate governance at the IAE business school of Aix-Marseille University, and was named a Distinguished Visiting Researcher at the American University in Cairo. He has been a member of the advisory boards of the Centre for Corporate Governance in Africa at University of Stellenbosch Business School and the Center for Corporate Governance at Handelshochschule Leipzig; and he has been an advisor to the corporate governance project at Alfaisal University School of Business in Riyadh. Elsewhere, Davis has been a member of the Advisory Board of Arkadiko Partners in London; senior advisor on the European Commission’s ESG investor training project; member of the Advisory Council of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board; member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Long Term Investing; Member of the Contributing Committee of Development Partners International; Member of the advisory board of Cartica Capital; member of the Private Sector Advisory Group of the Global Corporate Governance Forum; and member of the MSCI Thought Leaders Council.

Winner of the 2011 ICGN Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance, Davis authored the seminal “Mobilizing Ownership: An Agenda for Corporate Renewal”, published by Brookings in May 2012. Davis contributed to Corporate Governance in the Wake of the Financial Crisis (UNCTAD, 2011), The Origins of Shareholder Advocacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and The Cambridge Handbook of Institutional Investment and Fiduciary Duty (Cambridge University Press, 2014). His co-authored Are Institutional Investors Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? (Committee for Economic Development, Yale SOM Millstein Center, 2011) catalyzed Columbia Law School’s database Project on Investment, Ownership and Control in the Modern Firm.

Davis co-chaired The Conference Board’s Working Group on Hedge Funds and served on the US National Association of Corporate Directors’ Blue Ribbon Commission on board-shareholder communications. He has testified at US congressional hearings, been a columnist for the Financial Times and Compliance Week, and is a frequent media commentator on corporate governance. He has been named by Directorship as among the 100 most influential figures in corporate governance and by Trust Across America as among the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior. Davis is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts. Through Davis Global Advisors, Inc., Davis provides research and advice to capital market parties.

Dr. Davis earned his doctorate in international business and security studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and completed undergraduate studies at Tufts and the London School of Economics. Other books include Apartheid’s Rebels: Inside South Africa’s Hidden War (Yale University Press, 1987), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

One of the forerunners of corporate governance in Brazil, Sandra Guerra has served as a board member and chairperson of boards of directors since 1995. Her experience includes acting on the boards of listed, closed, family-controlled and state-controlled companies as well as of non-profit organizations both in Brazil and abroad. With more than 26 year's experience in corporate governance, she was one of the founding members of the Brazilian Institute of Corporate Governance (IBGC), where for four years, from 2012 to 2016, she was the chair of the board. On two occasions, she was also a member of the board of directors of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN). She was also board director of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), from 2017 to 2019. Ever since she completed her Master's degree in Business Administration at FEA-USP (2009), her research has been focused on the board of directors. Certified as a Board Member by the IBGC and as a Mediator by the CEDR-Center for Effective Dispute Resolution (United Kingdom). In 2017 she published the book “A Caixa-Preta da Governança. Conselhos de Administração Revelados por Quem Vive Dentro Deles”, published by Editora Best Business in Brazil and which is now in its 4th edition. The book – The Black Box of Governance. Boards of Directors Revealed by Those Who Inhabit Them - was updated and translated to English and published by Routledge in September 2021.

Yew Yee Tee practised was a lawyer in one of the biggest firms in Malaysia before joining Bursa Malaysia Berhad, one of the largest bourses in ASEAN, which operates and regulates a fully integrated exchange offering a comprehensive range of exchange-related facilities including trading, clearing, depository and settlement.

She has held various positions in Bursa Malaysia including Head, Enforcement before being appointed as the Chief Regulatory Officer (CRO) from February 2017 to February 2020. As the CRO, she was responsible for leading, strategising, planning, supervising all regulatory matters of Bursa Malaysia group covering 1) Regulatory, Policy & Advisory, (2) Listing, (3) Corporate Surveillance & Governance, (4) Participants Supervision, (5) Market Surveillance, (6) Investigation, (7) Enforcement and (8) Regulatory Strategy and involving approximately 150 staff.

In her 20 years in Bursa Malaysia, she has been involved in various regulatory and compliance matters relating to capital markets including corporate governance and sustainability.

Chris Hodge is an independent advisor on governance and regulation working with organisations including ICSA: The Governance Institute (the professional body for company secretaries) and the International Corporate Governance Network.

He is a member of Hawkamah’s Advisory Board. For ten years, Chris was Director of Corporate Governance at the Financial Reporting Council in the UK. In that capacity he was responsible for developing and promoting the UK Corporate Governance Code, and for introducing the first national stewardship code for investors in the UK. Chris established, and chaired until 2015, the European Corporate Governance Codes Network which shares information and good practice among the bodies responsible for codes in 28 European countries. Chris Hodge now chairs the Global Stewardship Codes Network, which brings together bodies from 18 markets.

Mak Yuen Teen is Associate Professor of Accounting at the National University of Singapore, where he specialises in corporate governance. He holds first class honours, master and PhD degrees in accounting and finance, and is a fellow of CPA Australia.

Prof Mak has served on key corporate governance committees which developed and revised the code of corporate governance for listed companies in Singapore. He is currently a member of the Corporate Governance Advisory Committee established by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Prof Mak also served on the Charity Council in Singapore and chaired the subcommittee which developed and revised the code of governance for Singapore charities. He also served on the advisory panel which developed a code of governance for town councils in Singapore. He was also the Singapore expert in the development of the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard and Ranking, an initiative of the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum.

Prof Mak served as a member of the audit advisory committee of the UN Population Fund and as a member of the audit advisory committee of the UN Women for consecutive six-year terms.

Prof Mak conducts training in corporate governance for directors, regulators and industry professionals in both financial institutions and listed companies. He has led research projects focusing on corporate governance of large Asian banks, gender diversity on boards and senior management, role of CFOs, stakeholder communications and other areas of corporate governance. Since 2012, he has edited an annual collection of Singapore, Asia and international case studies, with several volumes translated to Chinese and Vietnamese. He is a regular commentator on corporate governance in the local and international media.

He was recognised by the Securities Investors Association (Singapore) with the Corporate Governance Excellence Award and as a CG Pioneer by the Singapore Institute of Directors for his contributions to corporate governance in Singapore, and by the Minority Shareholders Watchdog Group (Malaysia) for his contributions to corporate governance in the region.