Amanda Packel

Director of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance,
Stanford University

Amanda Packel is a corporate governance expert with unique insight into emerging challenges facing corporate boards and the most critical issues on which institutional investors are focused. Since 2015, she has served as co-director and the lead operator for Stanford University’s Directors’ College, the nation’s oldest and most prominent education program for board members of publicly traded companies. In addition, Packel plans the content for other key Rock Center programs, including the Stanford Institutional Investors’ Forum, a semi-annual convening of corporate governance thought leaders from public pension funds, large asset managers, and Fortune 100 companies.

Packel has published articles on board composition and has co-authored a law school textbook, Leadership for Lawyers. As a recognized expert on board refreshment, gender equity issues, and corporate governance, she is frequently asked to speak on these topics to audiences of board members, business leaders, and academics. She has previously served on the boards of directors of the Thirty Percent Coalition and the Silicon Valley Directors’ Exchange, and she is currently a member of the advisory board to the California Partners Project’s Women on Boards Advisory Council.

After clerking for Judge Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Packel practiced white-collar criminal defense and conducted internal investigations as an attorney at Covington & Burling and then at Orrick. She has a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Order of the Coif, and an A.B. in economics, magna cum laude, from Princeton University.