The Directors’ Collective™ Access to Experts

Our Experts

Matteo Tonello, Managing Director, Environmental, Social, and Governance, The Conference Board

Matteo Tonello is managing director at The Conference Board. In his role, Tonello advises members of The Conference Board on issues of corporate governance, risk management, corporate sustainability, and citizenship. He regularly participates as a speaker and moderator in educational programs on best practices and conducts analyses and research in collaboration with leading corporations, institutional investors, and professional firms.

He is the author of several publications, including the bestselling Corporate Governance Handbook: Legal Standards and Board Practices and annual benchmarking reports on director compensation and board practices, CEO succession practices, proxy voting, and corporate sustainability practices.

Tonello was named by the National Association of Corporate Directors to the Directorship 100, a list of the most influential experts in corporate governance. He is a member of the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets and serves on the Advisory Council of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). He also was the co-chair of The Conference Board Expert Committee on Shareholder Activism and a member of the technical advisory board to The Conference Board Task Force on Executive Compensation. rior to joining The Conference Board, he practiced corporate law at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Tonello is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Bologna.

Afra Afsharipour, Professor of Law and Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall Research Scholar, University of California, Davis School of Law

Afra Afsharipour teaches courses in business associations, business planning and venture capital, antitrust, and mergers and acquisitions. Afsharipour is widely published and lectures frequently on various topics involving comparative corporate law, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, transactional law, and related issues. Her scholarship has appeared in a number of books and law reviews, including Columbia Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, National Law School of India Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and UC Davis Law Review. She is chair of the transactional law and skills section of the Association of American Law Schools and serves on the executive committee of the law and South Asian studies section. She also serves on the board of the younger comparativists committee of the American Society of Comparative Law. Previously she was an attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell, where she advised clients on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, public and private securities offerings, and corporate governance and compliance matters. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Rosemary Barkett of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She received her JD from Columbia Law School, where she was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and a BA, magna cum laude, from Cornell University.

Manali Paranjpe, Research Associate, Corporate Leadership, The Conference Board

Manali Paranjpe is a research associate with The Conference Board in India, where she conducts projects on corporate governance, risk management, and sustainability issues. As a qualified advocate in India, enrolled as a Solicitor with the Bombay Incorporated Law Society, Ms. Paranjpe also practices law at MDP & Partners, Advocates & Solicitors, Mumbai, focusing on matters of real estate, banking and capital markets, dispute resolution, in addition to general corporate law. She received her LL.B. degree from Government Law College, Mumbai. 

Sanjay Kapoor, Partner, CEO & Board Services Practice, Russell Reynolds Associates.

Sanjay Kapoor concentrates on conducting senior level Executive and Non- Executive Director (NED) searches in the Industrial and Natural Resources sector, professional services and for private equity / venture capital funds. His clients include multinational Corporations as well as a variety of Indian conglomerates. He also leads the CEO & Board Services practice in India.

Sanjay has more than twelve years of executive search experience. Before joining search, Sanjay was a Business Development Director at Mirant Asia Pacific Limited (formerly Southern Energy), where he was responsible for business development in India, the Middle East and Singapore. Prior to that, he was the Director of Business Development- India for Powergen plc. Earlier, he worked in treasury and investment banking with ANZ Grindlays Bank plc in India and the United Kingdom.

Sanjay received his B.Com. And M.M.S. from the University of Mumbai.