Teresa M. Sebastian

United States
Director, Kaiser Aluminum Corporation and Assemble Sound LLC
Panel 2: Reassessing Corporate Purpose

Teresa Sebastian is a C-Suite executive and Board member seeking a public or private company board. She has spent two decades in board rooms driving strategy, participating in the creation of shareholder value, and implementing best practices.

Sebastian is currently a Board member of Kaiser Aluminum Corporation, a public company that specializes in the production of semi-fabricated specialty aluminum mill products, where she serves on the Audit and Nominating & Governance Committees; and a Board member of Assemble Sound LLC, a private company that licenses, records, produces and develops music. She has also been a part of executive management teams working with boards on global expansion, corporate takeovers, shareholder activism, and mergers and acquisitions. She also brings a macro-economic view of business, from her experience in transactions around the world, such as the acquisition of manufacturing companies in Brazil and North America; a $10 million expansion of a joint venture in China; and various projects in Equatorial Guinea, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Slovenia.

Sebastian qualifies as an SEC financial expert and has used her finance experience as:

  • The current President and CEO of The Dominion Asset Group (DAG). DAG invests in early-stage companies, new funds and partnerships. Since its inception, DAG has invested in multi-family residential communities, a historical hotel renovation, a mixed use commercial development, a portfolio of small single-family urban homes, and an intellectual property portfolio, among other financial investments.
  • Senior Vice President and leader of the Internal Audit function at Darden Restaurants, Inc., a Fortune 500 company.
  • A current adjunct faculty for accounting and enterprise risk management at Vanderbilt University Law School.
  • Member of the Audit Committee of Kaiser Aluminum Corporation.
  • Board member and Chair of the Audit Committee for the United Negro College Fund, with approximately $100 million in revenue and $800 million in net assets. Sebastian also serves on the Budget and Finance Committee.
  • Various business positions in financial analysis at Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America.

Sebastian’s breadth of experience includes executive and leadership roles at diverse industries and at public and private companies. In addition to Darden Restaurants, she also made significant contributions to the growth strategies as Vice President at Veyance Technologies, Inc. [Private, $2B rev] during its ownership by the Carlyle Group; and as Senior Vice President at Information Resources, Inc. Sebastian also held leadership roles in senior management in two regulated companies, DTE Energy Company and CMS Energy Corporation. The early part of her legal career was spent at Sommer Schwartz law firm.

Sebastian has been an executive leader in corporate acquisitions exceeding $600 million domestically and internationally; in capital-raising efforts in public and private markets averaging $2 billion; in the implementation of operating efficiencies for budgets exceeding $20 million; and in the divestiture of a $2.1 billion business.

Sebastian is also an adjunct faculty and lectures on corporate governance and compliance at the University of Michigan Law School. She currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee.