Julie Kane

Julie is a former C-suite executive and current public company board chair and director, consultant and counselor with decades of experience spanning several industries, including: pharmaceuticals; chemicals and agribusiness; cosmetics, retail and direct-selling; energy transition and dual-fuel utilities. She has served in a range of senior business and legal roles throughout her career and for many years reported to CEOs and Boards of Directors. She is a proven leader with broad experience including: governance of early stage and mature organizations; sustainability; emergency, crisis and risk management; health, safety and environment; ethics and compliance; internal and external investigations; regulatory negotiations; law; and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Julie is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors of Heliogen, Inc., a publicly traded provider of AI-enabled concentrating solar power. She also serves on Heliogen’s Audit and Nominations & Governance Committees, the latter of which she formerly chaired. Julie is also on the Board of Directors of Lygos, a privately held company in the synthetic biology space. At Lygos she serves on the Compensation Committee. From 2019-2023, Julie was on the Board of SIGA Technologies, Inc., a publicly traded pharmaceutical company in the biodefense space. During her tenure at SIGA she first chaired the Nominations & Governance Committee and then the Compensation Committee. She was also a member of the SIGA Audit Committee. Julie is also currently serving as a compliance consultant to a private company and recently served as a compliance and ethics consultant to The Boeing Company.

Julie served as Senior Vice President, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer and Deputy General Counsel of PG&E Corporation from May 2015 – August 2020. She oversaw the company-wide compliance program, including the programs and systems designed to prevent, detect, and mitigate non-compliance, as well as activities arising from PG&E’s criminal convictions, term of probation and court appointed Federal Monitorship. She also led the Company’s ethics and compliance training, investigations program and culture-building efforts. In her legal role, she led the Company’s labor and employment law functions, among other areas. Julie reported directly to the Chief Executive Officer and President of PG&E Corporation and to the Board of Directors Audit and Compliance and Public Policy Committees. She was also executive sponsor of PG&E’s Pride Network.

Before PG&E, Julie worked at Avon Products, Inc. as Vice President and General Counsel of Avon North America and Corporate Legal Functions. Prior to her role with Avon, she held a number of senior roles with Novartis Corporation and its affiliates over a 25-year period, culminating in her role as Vice President, Ethics and Compliance for Novartis Corporation. Julie’s other Novartis roles included Vice President, Ethics and Compliance and Corporate Citizenship for Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, and Vice President, Health, Safety and Environment, Emergency Management and Chief Environmental Counsel for Novartis Corporation.

Julie served on a non-profit board, the Ethics Research Center in Washington, D.C., from 2017-2023 and currently serves on the Zoning Board of Appeals for the Town of Southampton, NY. She holds an undergraduate degree in political science from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and a law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law. She is a member of the California State Bar.