Susan Ward

Current public company boards: Amex Global Business Travel, Ecovyst, Saia

Executive Experience: Susan Ward is an experienced public company board member and accomplished Fortune 50 financial executive with over 35 years of diverse management and strategic leadership experience. Susan is a trusted advisor to C-Suite executives and corporate board members in both large, global organizations as well as emerging growth companies across a broad set of industries including transportation, logistics, travel, and chemical manufacturing. She brings a strong background in corporate governance, is a financial expert qualified to serve on an audit committee and is recognized for her deep experience in finance/accounting, corporate strategy, risk management, and operations excellence.

Susan currently serves on the public boards of Saia, a $12B midcap transport, Amex Global Business Travel, a $5B travel management company and Ecovyst, a $1B specialty chemical company. Her corporate board experience includes providing governance and expertise in areas such as organic and non-organic growth imperatives and enterprise risk management including cyber risk. Susan’s leadership as chair of the audit committees on each of these organizations has provided meaningful structure and oversight.

As the chief accounting officer and throughout her 25+ years at UPS, her impactful leadership style has resulted in many accomplishments including, the transformative change of a casualty program yielding savings of over $800M, the successful completion of two large acquisitions, involvement with the UPS IPO, the re-design of global deferred compensation programs, and the design and execution of pension risk management strategy for defined benefit plans. Her experience also includes P&L responsibility for a $400M US small package operation. Responsibilities also included the design and execution of a global finance & accounting functional transformation, targeted to save $30M annually through technology enabled solutions such as data analytics, AI, and robotics. Susan’s career reflects a demonstrated track record as a catalyst to successful large-scale transformation initiatives by optimizing financial management processes in complex, global business environments.

Susan started her career in Big 4 public accounting and served as a senior manager at EY in both the NYC and Atlanta offices.  Her industry experience included real estate, telecommunications, and entrepreneurial businesses among others.

She currently serves on the trustee board of the Annie E. Casey Foundation which is devoted to making sure that all children and youth in the US, regardless of race, ethnicity, or zip code have a bright future. Susan also serves on the trustee board of the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Atlanta. She has been actively engaged for the past fifteen years serving as board chair as well as chairing several committees. Additionally, she served on the finance committee of the CDC Foundation, a nonprofit that helps the CDC save and improve lives throughout the world.

Additional information: Susan received her bachelors in accounting from St. Bonaventure University, her MBA in finance from Fordham University, and she is a certified public accountant. She attended the Leadership & Strategic Impact Executive Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Susan currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia and Naples, FL with her husband.