Deborah Rosati is an accomplished corporate director, business-savvy entrepreneur and a Fellow Chartered Professional Accountant with over 35 years of high-growth and transformational leadership experience in the technology, consumer, retail, cannabis, life sciences, private equity, and venture capital industries. Deborah has served as Chair of Audit Committee for five public companies, a Lead Director and Chair of the Nominating & Corporate Governance Committee for a public company and served on several Special Committees of the Board for a range of mandates (including going public, going private, M&A, restructuring and special investigations). Most recently, she served as Chair of the Special Committee for a going private transaction.
Deborah, as Founder and CEO of Women Get On Board Inc., leads an 850+ member social purpose company that connects, promotes and empowers women on corporate boards. Learn more at womengetonboard.ca.
Deborah’s passion fuels her work ethic. She is a steadfast champion of corporate governance, ESG, sustainability, and board diversity through her board leadership and her social purpose company committed to getting more women on boards. She is a change agent who is actively engaged with the wider corporate governance community through frequent speaking engagements, panel discussions, podcasts, and authoring articles and e-books to share her expertise and thought leadership. Learn more about her speaking and writing on her website, deborahrosati.ca.
Over the years, Deborah has been recognized through numerous nominations and awards. She was recently honoured with The SustainabilityX® Magazine’s inaugural Global 50 Women in Sustainability Award™ 2022. With a quest to “redefine power,” this award is the first international power list bringing together women (worldwide) involved in sustainability and celebrating the power of their work – not their positions. In 2021, she was recognized as one of WXN’s” Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women” in the Entrepreneur award category. She has also been honoured as a 2020 “Director to Watch” and a 2014 “Diversity 50” candidate. And in 2012, Deborah was selected as one of WXN’s “Top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women” in the Corporate Director award category.
Deborah’s forward-thinking perspectives, honed from her entrepreneurial achievements and multiple governance leadership roles, make her an exceptionally valued trusted board member, advisor and mentor.
I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Deborah for the last two years. It is hard to sum up Deborah’s capabilities in a short note. We both sit on the board of Khiron Life Sciences (V:KHRN), and she is also a Director of TAAL Distributed Networks(C:TAAL) where I serve as President of the company.First of all she is fearless. The environment of a growth company is not for everyone, but for others, we would not have it any other way. Deborah brings passion and enthusiasm to her roles, and is always seen as an open minded problem solver. When a decision needs to be made, and we need to make sure we employ best practices and governance, we look to Deborah. At Khiron Deborah, accepted the leadership role of Audit Chair. She is always ready to lean in when real work needs to be done, and all the time sharing her experience and judgment with management. She gets stuff done, while raising the level of professionalism every time she is in the room.Often times when we identify a role that needs to be filled or created, usually that is met with an enthusiastic, “ Oh, you know what? I know the perfect person!” Deborah leverages her rolodex unselfishly at every opportunity.Good governance and policy can not stand in the way of creativity and entrepreneurship. Deborah not only finds the balance, she leads the way.
As the Chair of the Board of a TSXV-listed marketing company, I had the pleasure of working closely with Deborah in her roles as Vice-Chair of the Board and Chair of the Audit Committee. Deborah embodies the ideals one seeks in a corporate director. She listens to understand and keeps an open mind, builds relationships with internal and external stakeholders, acts with courage, stays informed and is always prepared. Her commitment to corporate governance and her business judgment are second to none. Serving on a board with Deborah was a highlight of my career and I count myself lucky to have had the pleasure of serving alongside her.