CorpGov hosted a fireside chat on Feb. 14 at Nasdaq MarketSite with Brendan Foo, Partner at Forward Global. The in-person interview was joined by Editor-in-Chief John Jannarone and they discussed how 2024 saw an emergence of newer activists, with 2025 seeing the same trend, bringing together strong advisory teams on a clear day and having constant board refreshment and activism preparedness exercises.
Watch the interview below:
About Brendan M. Foo
Brendan M. Foo is a Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Forward Risk, the investigations and intelligence practice of Forward Global. He leads the firm’s corporate contests practice, and his clients include some of the world’s top activist investors. He has also been engaged by issuers and their outside counsel on over 75 proxy contests and hostile takeover defenses. By bringing together his expertise as a practitioner and strategist, he has helped clients to prevail in multiple high-stakes proxy battles.
Brendan has extensive experience in all the firm’s core practice areas, as well as significant international experience. He has lived, studied, and worked in several countries. He also speaks Chinese and has undertaken multifaceted investigations for clients doing business around the world.
Prior to co-founding Forward Risk, Brendan established and led the Asia Desk and headed internal research operations in aid of initial public offerings and private equity due diligence at a global risk and compliance firm. Early in his career, he worked as a journalist in Singapore.
Brendan serves on the board of directors of the Capital Rowing Club and on the advisory board of the Master of Science in Foreign Service program at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He holds two Bachelor’s degrees from Fordham University and an MSFS from Georgetown University.
About Forward Global
Forward Global is an international firm, headquartered in France, with four main offices in Paris, Brussels, London and Washington D.C. Further technical teams are based in Lyon, Toulouse, La Roche-sur-Yon, Geneva, Abidjan, Dakar, Tunis and Mauritius.
Across its various practices, Forward Global is made up of practice groups boasting decades of being at the forefront of innovation in their fields, including DGM Conseil, founded in 1986 by Michel Calzaroni, who pioneered corporate communications in France; The Observatory of Arab Countries, launched in 1992 by Antoine Basbous, CEIS, founded in 1997, a leader in the industry for more than two decades; and Forward Global’s Brussels office, which was established in 2001.
In the cybersecurity space, Forward Global’s subsidiaries have a long track-record of excellence. Databack, our specialized data recovery laboratory, was set up in 2004. Lexfo, our information systems security consultancy, was launched in 2009. In order to provide our clients with a comprehensive range of services, we introduced our Leakid technology in 2007, specifically designed to combat counterfeiting.
