The Leadership Lectures: A Conversation with Sara Mathew

Dare to Lead

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Ms. Sara Mathew is the Former Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). She joined D&B in August 2001 as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), after 18 years at Procter and Gamble.  At D&B she was appointed CFO and SVP of International in 2005, CFO and President of the U.S. business in 2006, and President and Chief Operating Officer in 2007.  She was named Chief Executive Officer in January 2010 and assumed the role of Chairman of the Board in July of that year, a position she held until her retirement in 2013.  Ms. Mathew was a member of D&B’s Board of Directors from 2008 to 2013.

During her tenure at D&B, Ms. Mathew was instrumental in transforming D&B from a data company to a more innovative, digital enterprise, leveraging technological advances to expand its reach to new customers and structural changes to transform the underperforming International business.  She led the re-build of D&B’s core technology platform and data assets, introducing Data-as-a service (DaaS) to access new customers and accelerating Big Data Analytics to create new insights for its existing customer base.  

Ms. Mathew has received numerous accolades during her tenure at D&B.  In 2012, she was named to FT’s 50 Women at the top; in 2013, Top value creator in the S&P500 by Chief Executive magazine; in 2015 NACD’s Directorship 100 list; in 2017, FWA’s Woman of the Year; in 2018 Ascend/Deloitte’s  Pan Asian Director of the year. In 2019, Sara was awarded NACD Director of the Year for the New Jersey Chapter in 2019 and is the recipient of P&G’s John G Smale Award for outstanding alumni in  2020.  Prior to D&B, Ms. Mathew spent 18 years at Procter of  & Gamble.

Ms. Mathew currently Chairs the Board of Freddie Mac and serves on the Boards of State Street (Chair of the Comp); Reckitt Benckiser and NextGen SPAC  She has previously served on the Boards of Campbell Soup, Avon and Shire and has about 35 years of cumulative Board service.  Sara holds a bachelor's degree in physics, chemistry and mathematics from the Women's Christian College in Madras, India, and a master’s degree in business administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Mr. Manny Gonzalez is President and Founder of both MGM Consulting and MGM Capital. Prior to starting his own companies, Mr. Gonzalez spent twenty-three years in various leadership positions in marketing, sales, operations, and innovation at Procter and Gamble (P&G) in the U.S. and Latin America, including as Corporate Vice President. He was the first Hispanic to reach the vice president level in a US commercial function in P&G's 170 year history.

Active in the community, Mr. Gonzalez serves on the board for many organizations including as Chairman of the Board of Advisors for Center for Leadership at Florida International University. He also sits on the Board of Directors for SofBoost, Inc., New America Alliance, and Alfalit International, Inc. In recognition of his dedication to the community, Mr. Gonzalez was awarded the Hispanic Health Leadership Award in 2014 by the National Hispanic Medical Association/National Hispanic Health Foundation at the New York Academy of Medicine in New York, NY. The Hispanic Health Leadership Award is presented to outstanding individuals who have served in significant leadership roles and have improved the health of Hispanics and other underserved populations.

Mr. Gonzalez obtained his undergraduate degree from Cornell University where he received the prestigious Irving M. Ives award. He completed his Master's degree at Harvard University, graduating as a Kennedy Fellow and also was a visiting scholar at Pembroke College, Oxford University in England.

Nathan J. Hiller, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Center for Leadership and Associate Professor of Global Leadership and Management in the College of Business at Florida International University. He is passionate about the connection between the science of leadership and the practice of helping leaders and organizations make small adjustments to maximize leadership capacity.

As an academic, Dr. Hiller's focus is on investigating how senior organizational leaders and leadership teams can operate more effectively, finding ways to enhance how leadership scholars investigate and understand leadership, and understanding the ins and outs of collective forms of leadership. Nathan’s research publications have appeared in most of the top competitive journals in the field and his work has been cited more than 3000 times by other scholars. He holds or has held editorial board positions at the Journal of Applied Psychology, The Leadership Quarterly, and the Journal of Leadership and  Organizational Studies. He is the recipient of 8 teaching awards and has received several international research awards.

In his role at the Center for Leadership at FIU, Nathan oversees all executive leadership development programs and is the Faculty lead for The Senior  Executive  Leaders  Program,  The  High  Impact  Leadership Program, The Leadership Accelerator Program, and an internal  FIU  program geared for senior leaders (deans, vice presidents) of the university.  As a  leadership development practitioner,  Nathan has led projects, held grants, and consulted with senior executive teams and leaders from organizations including: Boston Scientific, Hewlett Packard (HP), the US Secret Service, Bacardi USA, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Nathan has held visiting faculty appointments at  Cornell  University and the University of Washington (Seattle), and taught a graduate leadership course at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in Rio de Janeiro. Nathan loves to travel and draws regularly from his experience living in four countries on three continents in ten cities. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Calgary and both his M.S. and Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University.