FutureBoards Associates and insight resources

Turid Elisabeth Solvang is the founder and CEO of FutureBoards, and a global corporate governance expert. She is former Chair of European Confederation of Directors Associations, co-Founder of European Women on Boards, member of Board Agenda’s Editorial Advisory Board , and co-founder and former CEO of Norwegian Institute of Directors.

With a background in corporate communication, she previously headed up Burson-Marsteller Oslo’s corporate communication practice, and the marketing division of Fearnley Data.

Ms. Solvang holds an MSc in General Business (Siviløkonom) and a Master of Management program in Scenario Planning from BI Norwegian Business School. She has held non-executive directorships in the financial and service sectors and membership organizations. Ms Solvang is a seasoned international speaker on corporate governance issues, including women on boards.

Please find more detailed information about Ms Solvang here.

Dr. Roger Barker is Head of Corporate Governance at the IoD, and managing director of Barker and Associates, a corporate governance advisory firm. Dr. Barker previously served as the Director of Corporate Governance and Professional Standards at the Institute of Directors for almost a decade. He is a UK Member of the European Economic and Social Committee (the EU advisory body), Senior Advisor to the Board of the European Confederation of Directors Associations (ecoDa) and Chairman of the ecoDa Education Programme for European Directors. He is Honorary Associate at the Centre for Ethics and Law at University College London and a visiting lecturer at Saïd Business School, Oxford, and Cass Business School, London.

Dr. Barker is the holder of a doctorate from Oxford University and the author of numerous books and articles on corporate governance and board effectiveness, including: ‘Corporate Governance and Investment Management: The Promises and Limitations of the New Financial Economy’ (Edward Elgar, 2017), ‘The Effective Board: Building Individual and Board Success’ (Kogan Page, 2010), and ‘Corporate Governance, Competition, and Political Parties: Explaining Corporate Governance Change in Europe’ (Oxford University Press, 2010). A former investment banker, Dr. Barker spent almost 15 years in a variety of equity research and senior management roles at UBS and Bank Vontobel, both in the UK and Switzerland.

Please find more detailed information about Mr Barker here.

Dina Medland is an independent writer and commentator, with a strong focus on corporate governance, ethics and the workings of the boardroom. Please find her blog here.

Ms Medland was on the permanent staff of the Financial Times at 23, and a regular contributor to the FT between 2010 and 2013, She has been a prolific Forbes contributor on corporate leadership for four years to September 2017, and she has also written for a host of other publications and now work regularly as a consultant to business.

Please find more detailed information about Ms Medland here.

Jo Iwasaki is a qualified accountant (ICAEW, ACCA) and trained in taxation and audit at PricewaterhouseCoopers, London. Since then, she worked as a subject matter expert at ICAEW on auditing & assurance, exploring its principles and wider application to related areas, such as internal control, sustainability, and narrative information. She then specialised in corporate governance and beyond, including leadership, risk, and corporate culture as Head of corporate governance both at ICAEW and at ACCA. As a thought leader she published and spoke on the governance principles, leadership and organisation, and risk. 

With her recent move to Helsinki, Finland, she has joined Helsinki Capital Partners, the only B-Corp in the country.  She engages and builds relationships with the company’s key stakeholders, particularly institutional investors as investor relations. She continues her thought leadership projects in governance and ESG alongside, and collaborates with bodies such as International Standards Organisation (ISO).  

Today she speaks regularly at conferences and roundtables on corporate governance and responsible investment on global platforms.

Please find more detailed information about Ms Iwasaki here.

Tom Olav Kleppestø runs his own management consultancy firm through which he holds part-time positions as General Manager for Shipping & Offshore Network and as Secretary to the Board of Oslo Shipowners’ Association, as well as Managing Director of Ocean Industry Forum Oslofjord.   

Mr Kleppestø has worked with several prestigeous programmes, such as women in boards (Female Future, 2004-2005), women in finance (Futura, 2006-2012) as well as with attracting young talents to the maritime industry (Maritime Trainee, 2004-2017). He also developed a top executive programme, Marex (Maritime Executive Program, 2011-2016), for the maritime industry together with Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE), ranked as the world’s No 1 in tailormade programmes by both Financial Times and Business Week.

Mr Kleppestø holds a MSc in Economics and Business Administration (Siviløkonom) from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).

Please find more detailed information about Mr Kleppestø here.

Ingvild Huseby is an investor and advisor for companies with disruptive business models solving UN sustainability challenges, enabled by digitalization. For more than 20 years Ms Huseby has been responsible for business operations within the TMT/IoT value chain (mobile, internet, triple play, hosting/cloud, business critical systems, AMS, payments, security). Ms Huseby is an experienced non-executive Board Director and Chair for a number of companies with different ownership structures.

Her focus is growing profitable Nordic businesses with a greater purpose, utilizing IoT, distributed ledger technology and AI+.

She advocates the importance of the tone from the top and the role of the Board, and the Chairman, and is passionate about ethical leadership, and the empowerment of people in general and women in particular.

Ms Huseby holds a MSc (Cand. Scient.) in Quantum Physics from the University of Oslo, and an Executive Master program in Corporate Finance from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).

Please find more detailed information about Ms Huseby here.