Martha Carter, PhD, is Vice Chair of the global CEO advisory firm Teneo. She also leads the Governance Advisory practice, which supports clients in all areas of governance, including activism, special situations, board advisory, executive compensation, proxy risk and proxy advisors, ESG, and shareholder engagement. Dr. Carter currently sits on the Advisory Council of the Harvard Corporate Governance Forum and previously sat on the Markets Advisory Council at the Council of Institutional Investors (CII). She is also on the Advisory Council for the Finance Department at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business.
Previously, Dr. Carter was the Head of Global Research at Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Chair and Founder of the ISS Global Policy Board. At ISS, she led Global Research’s team of 160 governance analysts in 10 offices worldwide. Her team provided institutional investors with research and voting recommendations on more than 38,000 companies in 115 markets.
Carter has been quoted in media worldwide and has also been a speaker at numerous corporate governance events. She has also written articles for a number of publications, including: NYSE: Corporate Governance Guide; International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Benefits Magazine; ICGN Yearbook; and Financial Analysts Journal.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Carter held positions at NASDAQ, The Federal Home Loan Banks, IBM, and Touche Ross. She has also held several academic appointments teaching finance courses. She holds a PhD in finance from The George Washington University, an MBA in finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and undergraduate degrees in mathematics and French from Purdue University. She also holds ESG certifications in SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) Level 1 and TCFD (Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure).
