Global consulting firm dss+ has established an external Impact Advisory Board tasked with advising the firm’s top management, shareholders and industry leaders.

The 7-strong Impact Advisory Board consists of business leaders with diverse backgrounds and experience from across sectors, in line with dss+’s goal to tap high-profile external insights and expertise to the benefit of the company’s development and the delivery of its services.

Headquartered in Switzerland, dss+ is one of the world’s leading consulting firms specialised in operations, environmental, health & safety, and sustainability. The new Impact Advisory Board does not hold fiduciary responsibility, but advises the firm’s Executive Leadership Team (10 members), Board of Directors (6 members), as well as key leaders of its industry practices.

FLtR: Davide Vassallo, Alex Kuilman, Seema Arora, Juan Gabriel Aguiriano Nalda, Alexa Dembek, Rafael Chaves Santos, Betül Susamis Unaran, Xavier Bontemps, Melissa Barrett, Marco Pagnini and Srinivasan Ramabhadran.

“At dss+ , we help our clients drive operations excellence, adopt sustainable business models, and embrace emerging technologies in their quest to stay relevant in a dynamic market,” said Melissa Barrett, Managing Director for Practices and Impact.

“Now, with the support and counsel of the Impact Advisory Board, we will be able to apply additional industry and innovation insights in our work with clients to help them evolve and deliver impact well into the future.”

Meet the board members
The seven members of the Impact Advisory Board are:

Xavier Bontemps is a leader with over 35 years of experience in the oil, gas, petrochemicals and new energies industries. He currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Noven Group Infra, and is affiliated to dss+ an executive consultant.

Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Health, Safety & Environment for Total Energies, as Refining Manufacturing Manager at Ineos, and as Works General Manager Refining & Chemicals at BP.

Betül Susamis Unaran has a proven track record of driving successful commercial and digital transformations in the healthcare industry for companies such as Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Novartis and DocMorris. She is the Chief Commercial Officer and an Executive Board Member of Unilabs, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of Ypsomed and Brain+. She also is an Advisory Board Member of Lumanity.

Juan Gabriel Aguiriano Nalda is an executive with over 25 years of experience leading businesses and driving strategic and sustainability transformations at some of the world’s largest food, chemicals and fibre companies.

He specialises in organisational leadership and development, business turnaround, change management and new business model development. He is currently the Group Head of Sustainability and Technology Ventures at Kerry Group, as well as a Board Advisor for Rice in Action.

Alexa Dembek specialises in driving science-based innovations and embedding sustainability into corporate strategy, thereby generating significant growth and value.

She is currently the Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer at DuPont (the former parent of dss+). She serves on the Board of Directors of CoorsTek, and is also a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board for Penn State’s Eberly College of Science and the Board of Directors of the Delaware Innovation Space.

Seema Arora is an expert on environmental management and sustainable development in India. She currently serves as the Deputy Director General at the Confederation of Indian Industry. She works with industry, government and community-based organisations to develop policy instruments and curate collaborative initiatives across sector and stakeholders.

She also acts as an Advisor to the government of India on low carbon growth strategies, measurement frameworks for sustainability performance and sustainable development action plans.

Rafael Chaves Santos is a leader, engineer and finance specialist with extensive experience leading organisations in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, he served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Brazilian Petroleum and Gas Institute and as Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer at Petrobras.

Previously, he has also held leadership positions at the Central Bank of Brazil, at Vale, and at the investment fund board of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative. He also works as a Professor of Economics at think tank Fundação Getulio Vargas.

Alex Kuilman is co-founder and retired partner of Mobius Executive Leadership, a top-level executive search firm. He is an executive coach, facilitator of transformation, mediator and culture change consultant across a broad range of industries. He supports many CEO’s and their teams with navigating the complexities of culture change initiatives.