Alison Davis: "U.S. Boards Could Benefit From More Listening Sessions With Key Stakeholders."
Welcome to the Boardroom Governance Podcast. I’m your host, Evan Epstein. In this episode, I talk with Alison Davis, the Co-Founder and Chair of Blockchain Coinvestors & Fifth Era, a leading VC firm investing in blockchain and Web 3. She currently serves as an independent director at SVB, Fiserv, Janus Henderson Investors, Collibra and Pacaso. She also serves as the Chair of the Advisory Board for Blockchain Capital LLC, advisor to Bitwise Asset Management and board member of the NACD Northern California Chapter. She is a former director of the Royal Bank of Scotland (“RBS”), City National Bank (“CYC”), Diamond Foods (“DMND”), First Data Corporation (“FDC”), Ooma (“OOMA”), Unisys (“UIS”), Xoom (“XOOM”), and many private companies and was the Chair of The LECG (“XPTR”) until its sale in 2011. As an executive, Alison was the CFO of Barclays Global Investors (now BlackRock), the world’s largest institutional investment firm. Earlier in her career, Alison spent 14 years as a strategy consultant and advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs, boards and executive teams with McKinsey & Company, and as a practice leader with Kearney where she built and led the global Financial Services Practice. In this podcast, we talk about her experience with public board service in the U.S. and abroad. We also discuss her focus on fintech and crypto, the role of the board in strategy and innovation, crisis management, the growing influence of institutional investors, ESG and her books focusing on the 'Fifth Era', corporate innovation and blockchain technology. Special thanks to Lisa Spivey from the Northern California Chapter of the NACD for facilitating this connection with Alison. If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast on social media. You can find all the show notes on the website boardroom-governance.com and please feel free to subscribe to the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at evanepstein.substack.com