Cynthia Clark is an internationally recognized corporate governance expert spanning multiple industries including real estate, financial services, mutual funds and community banking. She has experience on several corporate boards and on multiple committees including Audit & Finance, Nominating & Governance, and Disclosure Committees. Throughout her career she has focused on shareholder activism, ESG issues, public disclosures, proxy advisors and regulation. She has provided research insights on such high-profile projects as the Gender Diversity Index (incl. all 50 states) and the Census for Women Directors and Executive Officers. She has been widely cited in the media on governance issues including The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Institutional Investor, The Boston Globe, CNN, CBS, Forbes and Reuters and has appeared on multiple podcasts as a noted expert.

She has worked with numerous CEOs, c-suite executives and boards of directors at organizations such as Cutter/Arthur D. Little, Choate, Hall & Stewart, KPMG, BDO, Morgan Stanley, State Street Corporation and the Hershey Trust Company. From 2016 – 2018 she served as the ethics and governance advisor to the pre & post IPO Origin Bank (NASDAQ: OBNK) board of directors, a $4b broadly diversified bank. Cynthia is member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), the Society for Governance Professionals, the Society for Corporate Compliance & Ethics, the Private Directors Association (PDA) and 50/50 Women on Boards; she presents regularly at all. In 2015, she helped establish the International Corporate Governance Society and served on its board during its first 5 years. She serves on the audit and nominating committees of the Boston Public Library Fund Board, a private-public partnership.

Cynthia is the founding director of the Harold S. Geneen Institute of Corporate Governance – an institute dedicated to applying board of director research to practice. She is also a former banking & financial services industry executive overseeing mutual fund clients and served as a senior investment advisor for a securities firm in New York City.

She is the author of two recent books: Giving Voice to Values in the Boardroom (2021) and Business & Society: Ethical, Legal, Digital Environments (2020). She is also the author of Trust Diffusion: How Creating Climates of Trust Influence Organizational Effectiveness (2008). She is widely published in top-tier business and journals like Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Business Horizons, Strategic Management Journal, Business Ethics Quarterly, Management Information Systems Quarterly and Journal of Business Ethics. Her work received the McLaughlin Prize for Research in Accounting Ethics, the Emerald Publishing Citations of Excellence Award & Best Article at the Strategic Management Society and the European Academy of Management. She has made presentations internationally including in London, Paris, Copenhagen, Tampere, Bath, Berlin, Madrid, Valencia, Guanacaste, Bled, Florence and Rome.

Cynthia is the 2017 recipient of the J. William Fulbright Scholar award sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. As a Fulbright Scholar, while working in Spain, Cynthia researched best practices in international governance, specifically the influence of culture and government regulation on board composition and dynamics.  She also speaks Spanish.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston College, a master’s degree from Northwestern University and Ph.D. from Boston University.