Moderator:

Gloria Santona

Of Counsel, Baker McKenzie

Formerly, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of McDonald's Corporation

Gloria Santona is Of Counsel in the Chicago office of Baker McKenzie.

Gloria served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of McDonald's Corporation. Since 1977, she held positions of increasing responsibility in McDonald's legal department, serving as US General Counsel from December 1999 to June 2001 and corporate General Counsel from June 2001 until 2017. As a member of the company's executive leadership, she was actively involved in the company's growth strategy. She led the company's worldwide legal, risk, compliance and regulatory function.

Widely respected in the legal profession, Gloria was named an Outstanding General Counsel by the National Law Journal and has been recognized as one of America's Top General Counsel by Corporate Board Member magazine. Under Gloria's leadership, McDonald's legal department won numerous awards for its commitment to diversity and pro bono.

Speaker:

Aimée Christensen

Founder & CEO, Christensen Global

Aimée Christensen has spent three decades advancing collective wellbeing, leveraging policy, law, investment, philanthropy and business to build a just, resilient and thriving world. She began her career in Washington, D.C., at the White House and the U.S. Department of Energy, where she drafted and negotiated the first bilateral and regional climate change agreements (U.S. – Costa Rica, the Summit of the Americas, et al., 1994-1998). While in law school she wrote and gained adoption of the first university endowment investment policy on climate change (Stanford University, 1999).

She practiced law with Baker & McKenzie’s pioneering climate change and clean energy practice group, and with The World Bank, where she advised the Bank’s carbon funds (2005). As “Climate Maven” at Google, she guided the company’s early climate change initiatives including a commitment to carbon neutrality, launching Google.org’s first climate project, RechargeIT, to accelerate the electrification of transportation, and successfully lobbying for California’s AB32 (Global Warming Solutions Act).

Speaker:

Melissa Waller

President, AIF Institute

(AIF Institute is a division of the Alternative Investments Forum (AIF)

Melissa Waller serves as President of the AIF Institute, and is the former Deputy Treasurer and Chief of Staff for the North Carolina Department of State Treasury, where she successfully oversaw Department strategic planning, operations, and public-policy implementation, along with a staff of more than 400 employees. The North Carolina Retirement Systems, the pension fund for the state, is the tenth largest public pension fund in the United States, with assets in excess of $90 billion.

Melissa’s background includes over 20 years of private and public-sector financial industry experience, including 15 years in the banking sector with Wachovia/Wells Fargo. She has served as Chair of the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer’s Corporate Governance Committee, as well as on the Council of Institutional Investors Board of Directors and the Governor’s Board of Innovation for the North Carolina University System. She currently serves as Executive Program Director for the National Institute of Public Finance, as well as Director of Public and Private Partnerships for the Kenan Institute.