Shownotes
More than having such caring and nurturing hands, women nowadays have also demonstrated their power and strength on the business and corporate side. Jo Lynne Whiting, the Board Chair of the Women’s Leadership Foundation, believes that having more women on board is critical to the success of companies. She talks about how women can become a great leader to spearhead company success and create better economic development.
Women On Board with Jo Lynne Whiting
We’re incredibly fortunate because I have Jo Lynne Whiting. She is the Board Chair of the Women’s Leadership Foundation. I had the pleasure of meeting her at an event where women were talking about being on boards. Jo Lynne, thanks for taking your time. Tell us a little bit about the foundation and what your mission is.
Boardbound by Women’s Leadership Foundation, we are working for advocacy because we believe that having more women on boards is critical to the success of their companies. Fortunately, the research bears that out. We also work on the supply. We have a Boardbound program that equips women to step into board service and we work on-demand. We think there are a lot of very talented women already out there. The more that companies, CEOs, board directors, the chair nominating governance asked for those women and look for them, the better off we’ll be and we’ll have more balance on our boards.
How long has the foundation been around?
We were legally formed in 2002. The Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce formed an independent foundation and we were rather dormant until 2011 when we adopted a mission. The way we did that is we did research of what’s already going on here in Colorado, where are women succeeding and where are the gaps. One of the gaps that stood out was breaking that glass ceiling to get on the board. That is what we focused on. We started with research. In the very first research study, we learned that there was only 7% of the board positions in Colorado held by women.
How did that relate to the rest of the country as a comparison?
At that point in time, we didn’t have a good benchmark because you need to adjust to the size of companies. Back in 2011, you’ll hear publications say, “We’ve got 12%. We’ve got 14%.” They might have been only talking about the larger companies and here in Colorado, we do have a lot of smaller companies which tend to have fewer. Now, we know that and we know we’re about 2 percentage points behind the national average. We’re about 9 percentage points behind some of the best states whose companies that are headquartered there have done a great job of getting women on boards.
As far as percentage gains from where you were, you have made great strides.
It's everyone, both men and women, working together that are going to make this a better world and a better business environment.
We’re excited. It is slow, but it is a steady increase. We started at seven and I’m very proud to say that as of December 31st of 2018, we’re at 14.4%.
How does that put you in comparison to other states?
We’re still behind by about those 2 percentage points. The part that’s encouraging is if you look at 2018, we had a 2.1 percentage point gain and the previous six years it was less than one point. We’re encouraged because a lot of Coloradans have gotten behind this. Colorado was the fourth state to pass a resolution by both houses in support of having women on boards. Even before that, we had been working with some wonderful CEOs who brought their fellow CEOs and board directors together to talk about this issue. They had made a commitment and they were in support and help support that legislative resolution. People like Dave Liniger of RE/MAX, Pattye Moore who’s the Board Chair of Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, and Jerre Stead of IHS Markit were all great supporters.
Gary Goldberg of Newmont Mining. It has five women on their board. A lot of people would say that that’s an area that would not be traditional for women. They have a woman board chair and they have been very successful. Gary is a great leader and very thoughtful about how to make their global operations responsive to women. He talked about the gold mines in Africa and being sure that having women truck drivers for the gold mines in Africa was very unexpected. It has been quite productive once they introduced the concept that this is possible.
I knew a gentleman that had a fairly large construction company and he said that women were better drivers and they didn’t tear up the equipment near as much.
That’s what Newmont found too.
The recognition wave on the Women’s Movement, but you were advocating way before that timeframe. I don’t think a lot of people know the numbers on a dollars and cents basis the effect of having women on the board.
That’s been one of the things that is important. One of the things that has been great is investors have gotten behind this issue. Part of it is there is research that did a study following companies over a five-year period to say those that had three or more women on their board for that five years, how did they perform versus those with all-male boards. The companies that had three or more had a 37% increase in earnings and those with all-male boards had an 8% decline in earnings.
There are two things from that that are important. Three or more is a great number because you get past tokenism. The women that are participating are participating as individuals, not representing a whole gender, but bringing in their own skill set. The other thing is that it’s the diversity. Another research done by the Conference Board said that the performance of the whole board improves. They use the term effort norms. If a new woman gets on board, she often is very excited about this and very diligent about her preparation.
She comes in with good questions, but what happens is the rest of the board members also get more engaged. A lot of the research is not like, “Why is that performance improved?” It’s not simply because of the contribution. The women are the effect of having diverse perspectives of women and men and also different ethnic backgrounds. That’s the other thing where we are looking at. We have looked at the fact that we need more women on boards. If you look at the proportion of the population, we need about twice as many. We need about three times as many African American women on boards and we need eleven times as many Latinas on boards. We started Latinas in the Board room to focus on that. We’re proud that in our Corporate Boardbound program, we have Latinas and African-Americans. We have a good mix of people participating which enriches the program.
I’m thinking about the business owner that’s going, “I’ve got concerns about my board. I’ve got a board member rotating off and I want to take in and add diversity to my board.” What’s the approach? How do they find you and what happens next?
We would love for them to call us. A lot of larger companies have search firms. It’s wonderful if you have a search firm that is committed to bringing forth women candidates too. We were excited that Heidrick & Struggles has adopted a policy that half of their slate over a year to all of their clients will be women and racial candidates. That’s good, but that has not been the trend. That’s a new positive development. A lot of search firms tend to bring forth the people that are already on boards, which are predominantly white men. One of the things that we offer in any company that is interested in our Boardconnect program is that we’d love to listen to your requirements and what you need. What are those strategic skills that will help your business get ahead?
It's good for kids to know that whether they were born a boy or a girl, they're going to do great things in life.
We will bring you some women candidates and introduce you to some women candidates that we think would be good for you to consider. We’re able to look at that within Colorado because we know that 70 or so women living in Colorado are already on corporate boards. We’re able to look at our women that have already gone through our Boardbound program. They are C-Suite level. They have great expertise and they are prepared for board service. We also have a national network that we can tap so we can get candidates across the nation for a company’s consideration. We’re not a search firm and we don’t do due diligence on all of the candidates, but we are a valuable resource. We’re bringing you candidates that meet your needs that you then can decide if you think they’re a good match for your company’s board.
We were talking about the inventory of women and we were talking about in your career when you were working for a telecom in the corporate world. You didn’t even know that and I didn’t even know about that progression in your career. You built a company and sold a company, so you have the business ownership side. For some of the women they are going, “I’m looking for an expanded leadership role.” What types of things does Boardbound cover for them?
This is very important. We would love any college student that is thinking about their career, to begin having in their mind not only what’s my career path, but how does that include board service? Because it does take preparation. Many women who have large teams, they manage profit and loss. They may be cyber experts, they may be good in innovation and product development and growing the top line. All these skills that are proven are great qualifications. The first thing to do is to recognize that board service is something that you may want as part of your career. To prepare that, the basic foundation is to be good in your own job and to have a great track record because that gives reassurance to people. If you’re on a board, you’re representing a lot of the shareholders. You are looking for the future health of that company. You may not be a CPA, but you have to understand financial basics. You understand what the drivers are, the top line and the bottom line and how to bring that together.
We have two programs that might be helpful. The first one we call Community Boardbound. For women younger in their career or women that now have the breathing space to give back. It is a program to prepare you to serve on nonprofit boards, on hospitals, on university boards, on city and state boards and commissions. A lot of these are very important and very influential. It can make a big difference to our society. That program is a six-workshop certificate program and at the last workshop, there’s a little bit of speed dating between you and other organizations that are looking for boards. Even if it’s not a perfect match, you at least are thinking, “Do I want to be on a board that is education-focused, health-focused or different areas?”
Our second program is Corporate Boardbound. That’s a year-long program. It is fee-based. You have workshops and you also are assigned a mentor. Your mentor is someone that is a director of a corporate board so they can share their story and demystify what this means to have board service. That has been very helpful. You’ll get a one-on-one on governance and what the responsibilities are and what companies say they’re looking for in board members. You then prepare your board bio and résumé and then you think about, “What’s my unique value proposition? Will I be good for compensation committee or the audit committee? What would make someone want me for their board? What’s my target list of companies that I think I could add value to. How do I have a networking plan?”
This isn’t direct. People don’t advertise and say, “We’re looking for a board director.” It’s more networking. Most of the people that go through our Corporate Boardbound program, we’re very proud. We have had twelve go through in 2018 and we’ve had six that are on boards now. We think that a lot of the others have great prospects. A lot of them will find that board position through their own network, but because they’ve gone through Boardbound, they’ve got a clearer idea of how people can help them. They can articulate what their goals are and what their values would be in their network and it can help them find what seems like a reasonable match.
If they have not been on a board before and they serve on a board, what’s the transformation that happens to that woman that then has board experience? What do you see the change if there is one?
The biggest challenge is strategic thinking. If you’re in an executive position and you’re responsible for a department or if you are a person that’s grown your own business and is a successful CEO of your own business, you are very operationally-oriented. You think strategically about where you want to go, but your life is mainly executing what you need to do to be successful. If you’re on a board, your role shifts. You’re not the person that’s doing it, you’re the person that’s asking the right questions to be sure the right information is coming forward and that the strategy is clear. The accountability is clear and that the right people are in place. That transition from executive to the broader governance helps you to be more strategic for the rest of your life. You’re going to meet very interesting people. You’re going to meet thoughtful, successful, conscientious and caring people. They’re going to have perspectives based upon their life experiences which may be very different from your own. If you look for leadership development, serving on a board is greater than most university programs that you could do.
If you have a goal, put your energy towards it and just work hard.
A lot of times I’ll talk to people and they go, “They don’t know what they don’t know.” They don’t even know they should know. I think about for women that may want to take and serve on a board and they go, “I don’t even know where to get started. I haven’t framed the question. Why would somebody want me on the board? I just do this or whatever.” Let’s say that you’re a young woman starting your career and you go, “My five to ten-year goal is to serve on a corporate board, but I’m here.” Would the progression be getting on a smaller municipal nonprofit board?
That would be very valuable. You’d learn board process and governance responsibilities so that is very valuable. In Colorado, one of the things that I’m excited about is we’ve got a great cooperative relationship with other organizations concerned about this. We’re Boardbound by Women’s Leadership Foundation. We focus 100% on this. Colorado has the National Association of Corporate Directors Chapter. One thing you could do is attend one of their meetings, NACD. In that meeting will be a lot of current directors addressing issues that are important to the directors. You’ll get a lot of exposure and understanding and a feeling of, “Is this something that I want to seriously proceed with?” There is also a newly formed chapter of Women Corporate Directors. Many of them have been very helpful to us because we have women and men who are mentors in our Corporate Boardbound program. We are deeply appreciative of them sharing their time to work one-on-one with someone to help them along this path, because as you say, you may not know people in your life that are on boards.
Almost any publication that talks about how you succeed, there’s always a mentor somewhere or it seems like and you go, “How do I find a qualified one?” In this type of arrangement, there will be mentors like you were talking about in the training program. You were assigned a mentor and they go, “What a gift.” That is a gift.
They meet each other. They make sure they’re both comfortable proceeding with this year-long commitment. Some of our mentors have stayed involved past the year. It takes a lot of persistence and you have to think about and work at this. We just heard the story of a man that got on two boards within one year and a friend told him how lucky he was. He said, “I’m not lucky. I sat down at [8:30] every morning and worked on this.”
You have some marketing background and you’re marketing the product you know best. It’s a concerted goal and effort to get it done.
For the CEOs, I would encourage them to talk to us. There’s no risk to say, “Share with me some potential candidates.” I’ve sat down with some of them and gone over the qualifications. I’m remembering this one man. His eyes got bigger and he said, “They are so good.” In another case, someone said, “They might intimidate our current board.” We don’t want people to be fearful, but it was a sign that it was a powerful résumé. There are a lot of good and talented women that have accomplished a lot of wonderful things that could help businesses be successful. That’s what’s exciting for us. When you get that magic working for the woman and the company and they’re both excited that they’re going to have a stronger board and that they’re going to be more successful.
Do you have some events periodically through the year?
We have one coming up with the...
