Pete Shimer COO Deloitte and Jeff Roe CEO of Premera Blue Cross were our Extraordinary class 4 speakers.
Pete is central casting for our class as he is COO of one of the 4 biggest Accounting-Financial-Consulting firms in the world. Deloitte’s mission among many is to give critical advice to their clients including the Board of Director’s and Audit Committees. His class remarks focused on the role of public boards and Committees with particular emphasis on the functions of the Audit Committee. Pete has advised many of the most famous US based Companies. He concluded the class with a very interesting Mini Case Study about a mythical large public company with year end approaching. The case detailed a situation that involved the Companies Finance organization, Independent Auditor, and Audit Committee. What does the company do for effective and appropriate Governance? A discussion ensued.
Our second speaker Jeff Roe President and CEO of Premera Blue Cross very knowledgeable and informative with his remarks about leadership as Chairman and CEO of the Board of Premera. He spoke of his board formula that includes Advisors, Diversity, Culture and Performance. These topics were incredible teaching and learning points from a Nationally recognized CEO. Jeff discussed common board room challenges through infrequent, a Cyberattack and how he and his Board effectively handled the sensitive context. These topics were so informative and leadership driven by Jeff and his Board the students had dozens of questions. They were fascinated as during the post speaker wrap they talked about how skilled Jeff was with his Board. That is what this class is about CEO and Board Leadership. He concluded with a Model Board discussion. His focus is building understanding and consensus with Transparency, debate and trust. Jeff was simply fantastic as the students learned so much from this current CEO.