Mastering the Boardroom: Strategies for Executive-Board Alignment

Bill Rock CEO of MLR Holdings, the publisher of Directors & Boards magazine. 

Bill Rock is the CEO of MLR Holdings, which owns media, technology, and business intelligence companies, including MLR Media, the publisher of Directors & Boards Magazine.  Bill serves on the boards of multiple organizations and over the course of his career, has worked closely with CEOs, directors, and business leaders on strengthening governance, improving board effectiveness, and navigating the evolving dynamics of the boardroom.

For more than 50 years, Directors & Boards has helped directors, CEOs, and senior executives strengthen corporate governance through its digital platforms, magazine, research, and conferences.  MLR Media’s other governance platforms include Private Company Director; Family Business; FO Pro; multiple podcasts, conferences, and digital channels, and a growing portfolio of membership communities for board members, C-suite executives, and leaders and owners of multi-generational family businesses and family offices.

Bill is an independent board member of Day & Zimmermann, a century-old, multi-billion dollar global diversified company specializing in engineering, construction, workforce solutions, defense, and integrated security, supporting governments and energy, technology, and infrastructure companies.  Day & Zimmermann employs over 50,000 people in over 150 worldwide locations.    Bill is a member of the Boards of Trustees of TJUH System and Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, a leading academic health system, and also serves on the Jefferson Academic Affairs Committee at Thomas Jefferson University, which oversees the university’s operations and its educational and research programs. Bill serves as an Advisory Board Member for the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware and as an Advisory Board Member for Drexel University’s Raj & Kamla Gupta Governance Institute, where he helps advance board effectiveness and governance education. He previously served as Chair of the Philadelphia Chapter of YPO.

Under Bill’s leadership, MLR Holdings owned Uptime Institute, the global leader in data center certifications and services, until 2022, when it was acquired by Dominus Capital and 451 Research, a leading provider of business intelligence and market data for the technology markets, until 2019, when it was acquired by S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI).  Uptime Institute has awarded over 3,500 data center certifications, accredited over 10,000 highly specialized technical experts and provided advisory services in over 110 countries.  451 Research generates the data-driven insight that empowers technology and service providers, IT leaders, and financial professionals to capitalize on their market opportunity.  

Prior to joining MLR Holdings, Bill was a management consultant. He received his B.A. from Harvard University, his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  

Charles Elson, Executive Editor of Directors & Boards and Founding Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

Charles M. Elson is the Executive Editor-At-Large for Directors & Boards Magazine and the retired Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. Chair in Corporate Governance and the Founding Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. He was also “Consultant” to the law firm of Holland & Knight.

He formerly served as a Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida from 1990 until 2001. His fields of expertise include corporations, securities regulation and corporate governance. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School, and has served as a law clerk to Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson III and Elbert Tuttle of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, the Cornell Law School, and the University of Maryland School of Law, and was a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. and is a member of the American Law Institute. He has also served as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In 2019 he was a Herbert Smith Freehills Fellow at Cambridge University. 

Professor Elson has written extensively on the subject of boards of directors. He is a frequent contributor on corporate governance issues to various scholarly and popular publications. He served on the National Association of Corporate Directors’ Commissions on Director Compensation, Director Professionalism, CEO Succession, Audit Committees, Strategic Planning, Director Evaluation, Risk Governance, Effective Lead Director, Board Diversity, Talent Development, and Strategy Development and was a member of its Best Practices Council on Coping With Fraud and Other Illegal Activity. He served as well on that organizations’ Advisory Council. He was also a member of the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. 

Additionally, Professor Elson served as an advisor and consultant to Towers Perrin, the international human resource management consultants, and as a director of Circon Corporation, a medical products maker, Sunbeam Corporation, the consumer products manufacturer, Nuevo Energy Company, an independent oil and natural gas producer, the Investor Responsibility Research Center, a non-profit corporate governance research organization, Alderwoods Group, an international death care services provider, AutoZone, Inc. the national automobile parts retailer, Bob Evans Farms, Inc, a restaurant and food products company, Encompass Health Corporation, a healthcare services provider and Blue Bell Creameries Inc., a food products manufacturer. 

He is presently a member of the Board of Directors of Enhabit Home Health and Hospice Corporation, a healthcare service provider. He has served as a trustee of the Big Apple Circus, Talledega College, the Tampa Museum of Art, the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, the Delaware Museum of Natural History, the Delaware Art Museum and the Museum of American Finance. He is presently a trustee of the Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art and the Hagley Museum and Library. He has been included in the list of “100 most influential players in corporate governance” of DIRECTORSHIP, the “100 most influential people in finance” of TREASURY & RISK MANAGEMENT, the list of 10 governance “stars” of GLOBAL PROXY WATCH, and ETHISPHERE’S 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics.