Keynote Speakers

Theodore "Ted" Jadick
Partner and Vice Chairman
Heidrick & Struggles

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Nancy Newcomb
Former Senior Executive
Citigroup

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Yvonne R. Jackson
President
BeecherJackson

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Nicole Sebastian
Director, Event moderator
WECNY

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Theodore "Ted" Jadick
Heidrick & Struggles

Theodore "Ted" Jadick joined Heidrick & Struggles in 1975 as a Consultant in the New York office. He assumed the role of Partner in 1977 and was named Vice Chairman and a Member of the Office of the Chairman in 2002. He has served as a member of the Executive Committee of Heidrick & Struggles and as Managing Partner of the New York office. In 1997, he was honored with the John E. Struggles Partnership Award. Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Ted was a Senior Vice President at Frank W. Hastings Associates for ten years. His previous experience includes four years as a Staff Accountant and Auditor for Haskins & Sells. He began his career with an accounting internship at Arthur Young & Company, after receiving his B.S. in Accounting from the University of Scranton in 1961. Ted's experience encompasses a wide variety of searches in finance, general management, and directorships with particular focus on Fortune 500 companies in the areas of information technology, consumer, health care, industrial, and financial services. He has conducted senior level searches for such organizations as Bowater Incorporated, Brunswick Corporation, Cushman & Wakefield, Harris Corporation, IKON Office Solutions, International Flavors & Fragrances, International Multifoods, Major League Baseball, and Office Depot. Over the years he has conducted more than 200 directorship searches for such companies as Abercrombie & Fitch, ABN AMRO, Activision, Bausch & Lomb, BellSouth, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Con Edison, The DIRECTV Group, Dow Chemical, Fairmont Hotels, Fannie Mae, George Weston Ltd., Harris Corporation, Hercules Incorporated, IKON Office Solutions, Jones Lang LaSalle, Moody's Corp., Mutual of America, Neustar, Norfolk Southern Corporation, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tiffany & Co., Unilever NV, Viacom (the split into CBS and MTV), and Xerox. He has also been active in board building for IPO spin-offs from large corporations for such clients as Quest Diagnostics (Corning), and Zimmer (Bristol-Myers Squibb). Ted Jadick has been consistently nominated by clients as one of the top executive recruiters in America in all three editions of John Sibbald's Career Makers. In addition, he is listed among the top 200 executive recruiters in the world in the 1998 book The Global 200 Executive Recruiters by Nancy Garrison Jenn. Active in community affairs, he serves on the Board of the Calvary Hospital Foundation in the Bronx and recently served as a Trustee for the University of Scranton. Ted and his wife, Rosemary, live in New York City, Guilford, Connecticut, and Longboat Key, Florida. They have one daughter.

Nancy Newcomb
Former Senior Executive
Citigroup

Nancy Newcomb - is a former senior executive of Citigroup, where she had a wide variety of global responsibilities, including principal financial officer responsible for worldwide treasury, and co-head of the multinational business. She retired in 2004 and is a director of DirecTV Group, Inc., Moody's and Sysco Corporations and a trustee of the Van Leer Group Foundation, the Netherlands. She has served on numerous non-profit boards, including the New York Historical Society, where she was board Chair for 8 years, and is currently co-chair of the executive committee. She is a member of the executive committee of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, of the Foundation for Landscape Studies, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a graduate of Connecticut College, has an MA from Boston University, and is a graduate of Harvard Business School Executive Program.

Yvonne R. Jackson
President
BeecherJackson

Yvonne R. Jackson, President of BeecherJackson, a small management and human resources consulting firm based in Coral Gables, Florida. Formerly Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer at Pfizer Corp, Compaq and Burger King Corp. For many years held Senior Human Resource positions at Avon Products. Currently, serves on the Advisory Council of Price-WaterhouseCoopers and is on the Board of Winn-Dixie, serving as Chair of the Compensation Committee. Jackson serves as ChairWoman Board of Trustees of Spelman College, Board of Association of Governing Boards of University and Colleges(AGB) and Girls Inc. During her 30+ year corporate career, Ms. Jackson has been involved in dynamic business environments, turn-arounds, acqui­sitions, joint ventures, business units, divisions, and corporate operations of high-profile publicly traded companies, including Pfizer, Compaq, Burger King, Avon and Sears. Reporting directly to the CEO as Chief People Officer in her last 3 roles, Ms. Jack­son leveraged her leadership experience to influence fundamental business and executive talent changes while developing and implementing new innovations in strategic planning, policy development, communications, business partnering and compensation/benefits. Her business experience includes significant expertise in large scale change included in that are integration efforts, transitions for CEO’s, focus on succession planning and talent development and acquisition. In Board leadership roles, Ms. Jackson served as Chair of the Search Committee for Spelman College Board of Trustees where she led a year-long evaluation and selection process to recruit the current President of this 2100 student liberal arts women college in Atlanta, Georgia. More recently she has been involved in redesigning the Trustee Board structure and focus as the current Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of Spel­man College. She has served on the Board of Best Buy Inc. where she was active on major changes in the compensation structure of the company as a member of the Compensation Committee. Ms. Jackson is an alumna of Spelman College, and holds a Management Development Certificate from Harvard Business School. She has been recognized as a Woman of the Year by the YWCA, was one of the first women to have appeared on the cover of Black Enterprise Magazine, and was featured in Forbes as a philanthropist. Her life story was told in Rosey Grier’s book, All American Heroes. She is a recognized speaker in areas of Change Management

Nicole Sebastian
Associate with the CEO & Board Practice
Heidrick & Struggles

Moderator - Nicole Sebastian is an Associate with the CEO and Board Practice at Heidrick & Struggles, a leading global executive search firm. In this capacity, she primarily works to build the boards of Fortune 500 companies. Prior to her current position, Ms. Sebastian was Manager of Governance at the Robin Hood Foundation, where she was responsible for the board development, recruitment and governance education needs of Robin Hood’s grant recipients. Prior to Robin Hood, Ms. Sebastian worked as a freelance consultant, helping several non-profit organizations and foundations in New York with their strategic and operating plans. Ms. Sebastian spent four years as a Program Director at the French-American Chamber of Commerce, where she managed an exchange program that generated 86% of the organization’s revenue. In addition, she has conducted policy research for UNICEF on the prevention of trafficking, served a tour with UNFPA in Costa Rica, and worked for Saint Gobain Desjonquères, a French glass manufacturer. Ms. Sebastian holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Columbia University with a concentration in non-profit management and a BA in English and French literature from SUNY Geneseo. She is a member of the Young Professionals Committee of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and a member of the Grantmakers Committee of the board of Governance Matters.