Brand Finance Global 500 2019 Launch at Davos: The Role of CEOs in Shaping Brands & Reputation

Catherine P. Bessant is chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, and is a member of the company’s executive management team. Since 2010, Bessant has led Global Technology and Operations (GT&O), delivering end-to-end technology and operating services across the company through nearly 95,000 employees and contractors in more than 35 countries. Bessant has held a number of senior leadership roles for the company. She was president, Global Corporate Banking; president, Global Product Solutions and Global Treasury Services; chief marketing officer; president, Consumer Real Estate and Community Development Banking; national Small Business Segment executive; and president of the Florida market. She joined the bank as a corporate banker in 1982.

Bessant represents our employees on a number of important topics serving as executive sponsor for the company’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride executive board, the LGBT Ally program, and the Disability Advisory Council. In 2018, she was named No. 1 among OUTstanding LGBT+ Ally Executives, presented by the Financial Times. Active in the community and region, Bessant received the 2018 Distinguished Service Award from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In addition, she was awarded the North Carolina Order of the Long Leaf Pine and was recognized by the Charlotte Business Journal with the Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award. She chairs the North Tryon Vision Plan Advisory Committee. Bessant recently led the formation of The Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Managed by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the council will convene the brightest minds
from tech, business, academia and government.

Bessant serves on the board of directors of Zurich Insurance Group, is an independent member of the USA Field Hockey board of directors and is on the advisory board for the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Along with Ross School faculty, alumni and students, she summited Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the world’s tallest freestanding mountain, in August of 2018. For the second year in a row, she is ranked No. 1 among the “25 Most Powerful Women in Banking” by American Banker. She also appears on Working Mother magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Working Moms” list of 2018.

David is the Chairman and CEO of Brand Finance Plc – the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy. He has worked in the area of branded business, brand, and intangible asset valuation since 1991. He specialised entirely in the field after becoming the Director of Brand Valuation for Interbrand in 1995. He subsequently left Interbrand in 1996 to launch Brand Finance which is celebrating 25 years in business this year.

David represented the British Standards Institution in the working parties responsible for crafting international industry standards: ISO 10668 on Brand Valuation in 2010 and ISO 20671 on Brand Evaluation in 2019.

David is a passionate writer and has authored many articles on brand valuation, published in numerous marketing and finance newspapers and magazines, such as: Financial Times, Accountancy Age, and Marketing Week. He has also lectured on the topic of brand valuation for Harvard, Chicago, and London Business Schools.

David graduated from Bristol University with an English degree, qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London, and obtained a postgraduate diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He is a Fellow of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and has a practising certificate with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

Jonas Prising was named ManpowerGroup Chairman in December of 2015 and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in May of 2014. He leads all aspects of ManpowerGroup’s $20 billion business across 80 countries and territories worldwide. Prior to being elected CEO, Prising served as ManpowerGroup President from 2012 to 2014, leading the company’s operations in the Americas and Southern Europe, and overseeing the global
Right Management and ManpowerGroup Solutions businesses. Prising joined ManpowerGroup in 1999 and has also served as managing director of Manpower Italy; director of Manpower Global Accounts — Europe, Middle East and Africa; President of North America; and President of the Americas.

A recognized expert on the labor market and world of work trends, Prising regularly speaks at conferences and summits globally, and provides commentary on jobs and employment trends for media. He is actively engaged in the World Economic Forum, including as a Steward of the Future of Education, Gender and Work Global System; Co-Chair of the Regional Business Council on Europe and CEO Champion of the Digital Transformation Initiative.

Before joining ManpowerGroup, Prising worked for Electrolux, a Swedish multinational. During his 10-year tenure with Electrolux, he held various international positions within the consumer goods and business-to-business divisions, including regional manager for Asia Pacific, managing director of Sales Companies in France and the United Kingdom, and finally head of Global Sales and Marketing for one of its business-to-business divisions.

Prising is passionate about preparing the workforce of tomorrow. He is Vice Chairman of Junior Achievement (JA) Worldwide and is a former Chairman of the Board and a current board member of Junior Achievement (JA) USA. In addition, he serves as a co-chair of Innovation in Milwaukee, an organization focused on supporting entrepreneurial leadership, and is a member of the board of directors of Kohl’s Corporation.
Prising holds an MBA (equivalent) from the Stockholm School of Economics and has participated in executive programs at Harvard, INSEAD, Stanford and Yale. He speaks five languages: English, French, German, Swedish and Italian and has lived in nine countries across Asia, Europe and North America. Prising and his family reside in the Milwaukee area.

Natarajan Chandrasekaran is Chairman of the board of Tata Sons, the holding company and promoter of more than 100 Tata operating companies with aggregate annual revenues of more than US $100 billion. He joined the board of Tata Sons in October 2016 and was appointed Chairman in January 2017.

Chandra also chairs the boards of several group operating companies, including Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Global Beverages, Indian Hotels Company and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) — of which he was chief executive from 2009-17.

The Tata group companies include 29 publicly-listed corporations with a combined market capitalisation that exceeded US $120 billion at the start of 2017. His appointment as Chairman followed a 30-year business career at TCS, which he joined from university. Chandra rose through the ranks at TCS to become CEO and managing director of the leading global IT solutions and consulting firm.

Under his leadership, TCS generated total revenues of US $16.5 billion in 2015-16 and consolidated its position as the largest private sector employer in India and the country’s most valuable company. TCS has also been placed among the ‘big 4’ most valuable IT services brands worldwide, ranked as one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Forbes and recognised as a Global Top Employer by the Top Employers Institute across 24 countries.

Chandra embedded a culture of customer-focus and innovation at TCS.

In addition to his professional career at Tata, Chandra was also appointed as a director on the board of India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, in 2016. He has been appointed on the International Advisory Council of Singapore’s Economic Development Board in 2018. He is the Chairman of Indian Institute of Management Lucknow as well as the President of the court at Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru.

Chandra is an active member of India’s bilateral business forums including USA, UK, Australia and Japan. He served as the chairman of NASSCOM, the apex trade body for IT services firms in India in 2012-13.

His business leadership has been recognised by several corporate and community organisations, and he has received numerous awards, including:

·         Business Leader of the Year at the ET Awards for Corporate Excellence 2016

·         CNBC TV18 Indian Business Icon 2014

·         CNN-IBN Indian of the Year 2014 (business category)

·         Best CEO for 2013 and 2014 by Business Today

·         Best CEO 2010-15, Institutional Investor’s annual All-Asia Executive Team rankings

Chandra has been awarded several honorary doctorates by leading Indian and international universities, including an honorary doctor of letters from the Regional Engineering College, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, where he completed a masters degree in computer applications course before joining TCS in 1987.

Chandra is an avid photographer and a passionate long-distance marathon runner. In April 2017 he ran the London Marathon, thereafter completing the World Marathon Majors. The World Marathon Majors include the marathons in New York, Boston, Chicago, Berlin, Tokyo and London.

Born in 1963, Chandra lives in Mumbai with his wife Lalitha. Their son, Pranav, is at university.

Kylie Wright-Ford is the Chief Executive Officer at Reputation Institute and is responsible for global leadership and governance. Kylie was previously the Chief Operating and Strategy Officer for World 50, a company that manages private peer communities enabling CEOs and C-level executives from globally respected organizations to stay ahead. Prior to World 50, she was part of the leadership team at New York-based Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) for seven years. In the early part of her career, Kylie worked in finance for ten years including eight years with Goldman Sachs JBWere in Australia. She completed her MBA at Oxford University in 2005 and is the co-author of a book about leadership in the fourth industrial revolution - The Leadership Mind Switch.  Kylie has lived and worked in Australia and the UK before coming to the US. She brings a track record of driving significant revenue growth, leading innovation and building great teams in global settings.