Management Bios

Susan Shultz, Founder & CEO

Susan founded The Board Institute with the sole purpose of helping to build better boards. Taking this mission and coupling it with her deep experience in board management, she has developed the only professional, independent, web based suite of tools to help organizations assess, benchmark and enhance their boards of directors and their committees.

Susan also leads OakBridge's Global Board Practice, dedicated to helping public and private companies build better boards of directors, through our comprehensive director search services. Prior to joining OakBridge, Susan ran her own successful search firm, SSA Executive Search International, Ltd., for 25 years, where she has been recognized as a leading expert in corporate governance. She authored the highly acclaimed The Board Book, Making Your Corporate Board a Strategic Force in your Company's Success (AMACOM) and has been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, USA Today, Strategic Finance, CFO Magazine and numerous other media. She has spoken about corporate boards at The Business Roundtable, The Commonwealth Club, the Canadian Chartered Accountants, Montreal, the Financial Executives Int'l Annual Summit, the Economist CFO Forum, Tokyo, Semantic Annual CIO Symposium, various CEO gatherings, and to many other organizations.

Before establishing her search firm, Susan had a marketing firm, an import-export company, and was a consultant/media director for many U.S. state and federal political campaigns. She was a columnist and investigative reporter for Phoenix Magazine for 15 years, and has written for numerous other publications. Prior to that, she managed legislation for Rep. William E. Brock in Washington, D. C. Susan received a B.A. in Government and Economics from the University of Arizona and completed all core graduate work in International Affairs and International Economics at George Washington University.

Susan currently serves on the board of Amazon Bank, chairs the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (NYC), Pacific Council on International Policy (Los Angeles), is a director for the School of Global Studies, ASU, and is past President of the Arizona Business Leadership Association. She also served on SBA's eight-member National Small Business Development Center Advisory Board and numerous other boards.

Mark Edwards, PhD, Chief Metrics & Behavioral Research Advisor

Mark brings to The Board Institute his experience as an author and Professor of Survey Research at ASU, leading the charge to continually enhance and optimize the unique methodology employed in TBI's indexes. Mark is the creator of the 360-degree feedback methodology and author of the best-selling book 360 Feedback. Mark is also the CEO of TEAMS, Inc., a consulting firm implementing the 360o approach now in use at more than 100 companies.