Lisa M. Palumbo has served public and private companies as a C-suite executive and board member in the engineering services, defense, natural resources and technology sectors. She currently serves on the board of directors of Rayonier Advanced Materials (NYSE:RYAM), a global supplier of high-purity cellulose specialties, lumber, paper pulp, paper and paperboard products. She chairs its Nominating and Governance Committee and serves on its Compensation and Management Development Committee.
Ms Palumbo previously served as the Sr. Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Parsons Brinckerhoff Group Inc., a global engineering, program management and infrastructure development firm with over 14,000 employees on six continents and 2014 annual revenues in excess of $2.5 billion. She directed the worldwide Legal, Risk Management, Compliance, and Environmental, Health & .
Safety programs, and oversaw business development and marketing of the Company’s proprietary safety management system. In addition to guiding the firm through transformative and complex change in control transactions, she led the development and implementation of a global risk management information system, successfully reducing professional liability claims exposure year over year during her tenure. In January 2015 she retired from Parsons Brinckerhoff after its acquisition by WSP Global.
Before joining Parsons Brinckerhoff in 2008, Ms Palumbo served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of EDO Corporation (NYSE:EDO) a developer of advanced, highly engineered systems and services for defense and commercial markets (2002-2008). Ms Palumbo guided EDO and its Board of Directors through significant governance and regulatory changes and developed its corporate compliance program, negotiating and successfully implementing a Consent Agreement with the U. S. State Department covering international defense technology export compliance. She also served on the Board of Directors of EDO (UK) Ltd. During her tenure, as a member of EDO’s Acquisition Council, she evaluated, negotiated and closed nine strategic acquisitions in five years, during which time revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 16%, through its own acquisition by ITT in December 2007. Previously, she served as Vice President and General Counsel of Rayonier, Inc., (NYSE:RYN) a supplier of timber, wood products and performance fibers (1997-2001), and as Assistant General Counsel of Avnet Inc. (NYSE:AVT) a global supplier of electronic components, information systems and supply chain management services (1987-1997). She joined Avnet from private practice where she concentrated in commercial litigation.
Ms Palumbo received a JD degree is from Rutgers Law School-Newark and a BA degree from Rutgers University summa cum laude, with college honors, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She is admitted to the bars of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.