Valerie L. Banner is a member of the Board of Directors and Nominating Committee of Main Street Capital Corporation (NYSE:MAIN), an investment firm providing debt and equity capital to lower middle market and middle market companies, and a member of the Advisory Board of the KBH Energy Center in Austin, Texas. She also serves as senior Vice President, Governance and Risk at Exterran Corporation (NYSE:EXTN), a midstream systems and process company in the oil, gas, water, and power markets operating in over 20 countries, and is retiring from this position in April 2021.
Ms. Banner is a global business leader with extensive international experience in corporate business, strategy, ESG, enterprise risk alignment, merger/divestiture and capital markets transactions. For more than three decades, Ms. Banner has worked with corporate boards, CEOs, and corporate executives across multiple regulated and unregulated industries, primarily in midstream energy, manufacturing and industrial services sectors. She has broad functional experience, with reporting lines that currently include enterprise risk, ESG/sustainability, crisis management, acquisitions and divestitures, capital markets transactions, compliance and legal functions. Her expertise is in responding to complex and evolving strategic, governance, and enterprise risk matters, as well as identifying opportunities for growth, innovation, and talent development.
As a leader on Exterran’s executive management team, Ms. Banner is one of six senior executives driving shareholder value by defining and implementing the Company’s global strategy and operations. In addition, she has substantial governance responsibility, including responsibility for the Company’s ESG initiatives, engagement with the Company’s largest shareholders, and management of enterprise-level risks. A trusted advisor to Exterran’s board of directors, she consults frequently with board members on various topics. Together with the CHRO, Ms. Banner works with the Company’s compensation consultant on executive compensation and incentive plans.
As part of her risk management responsibilities, Ms. Banner successfully led the 2016 investigation and restatement of Exterran’s financial statements due to its Italian subsidiary’s accounting improprieties and resulting SEC investigation, completed in April 2019 with no enforcement action or fine. She led and completed an international arbitration and settlement with the Republic of Venezuela valued in excess of US$540M for expropriated business operations and assets, and a settlement with Venezuela valued in excess of US$400M for joint ventures’ expropriated business operations. Ms. Banner also developed a global business risk assessment and management program and a program to protect and maintain the proprietary nature of Exterran’s technical expertise. In her previous roles, Ms. Banner led numerous mergers, divestitures and capital markets transactions, a rollup and IPO following a private equity acquisition, and a significant portion of a spin transaction creating two public companies.
In addition to Ms. Banner’s C-suite role, she has served as a director of several Exterran subsidiaries, including the sole non-independent director of its Netherlands international holding companies. In connection with her leadership responsibilities, she has traveled frequently to locations in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.
As a member of Main Street’s Board, Ms. Banner works with management to oversee strategy, material risks and business opportunities, with the goal of creating sustainable shareholder value. The Board’s responsibilities have also included the 2018 planning and successful completion of the CEO’s succession, who remains as its Chairman.
Ms. Banner is a founder and Co-Chair of the Energy Workforce and Technology Council ESG Committee. She is also a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, Women Corporate Directors, Society for Corporate Governance, and Women in Energy. Ms. Banner received her BBA, summa cum laude, from Southern Methodist University and her JD, cum laude, from The University of Texas School of Law.