Women account for 70-80% of consumer purchases, and corporations with at least one woman on their board have a higher return on equity than those without, in accordance with the Women on Boards Project. website — yet women hold just 20% of board seats globally and are not expected to realize gender parity for a long time, in accordance with Deloitte report.
Cassie Burr, Co-Founder and CEO Women on Boards Projectis on a mission to vary that. In February 2020, she and co-founders Sheryl O’Loughlin, Melissa Facchina, and Kara Cissell-Roell launched a project to extend the number of ladies on the boards of personal consumer corporations.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Women on Boards Project. Cassie Burr, Co-Founder and Executive Director.
A series of “connected” experiences helped Burr determine to co-found the organization and nurture her commitment to supporting women leaders.
Burr, a college math major, was recruited by Goldman Sachs and moved from Arizona to Utah to hitch the company. “I was drawn to STEM-focused recruiting, women-focused recruiting,” she recalls. “I ended up helping build a global training initiative [and joined] leadership team of their women’s network. That helped me understand that capital markets were interesting, but what fueled my passion were the human elements of the organization.”
From there, Burr joined an executive search firm in San Francisco and then became vice chairman of talent at consumer-facing private equity firm VMG Partners. “The concept of a talent partner was still pretty new” at VMG, and Burr had the opportunity to define what that meant in terms of the firm’s commitment to building organizations as diverse as its client base.
“[But] We have no supply problem. There is no shortage.”
Burr’s early skilled experience got here to the fore when O’Loughlin, co-founder of organic food company Plum Organics and former CEO of Clif Bar, brought Burr on board several other women, including Cissell-Roell, Burr’s former boss at VMG, and Facchina, co-founder and general partner at Siddhi Capital.
As Burr recalls, everyone was frustrated by the lack of female representation on corporate boards and the misguided focus on the “supply problem” of ladies in leadership positions.
“We saw a lot of groups focused on what we would call the supply side,” Burr says.[But] We don’t have a supply problem. There’s no shortage. There’s an incredible ecosystem of talented founders, CEOs, and operators who could be incredible board members if given the opportunity.”
Part of the problem, Burr said, is rooted in the problematic term “board-ready.”
“There’s no mystical threshold you reach to be ready,” he explains. “Every boardroom is completely different. What makes you an amazing candidate will vary based on the investor, the stage of the company’s development and what it’s trying to accomplish.”
“With private companies, you actually have more room for creativity.”
The Women on Boards project was launched by a consortium of investors with a goal of accelerating the number of ladies on boards: VMG Partners, City Capital, L Catterton, Swander Pace and others. In its first yr, 20 corporations committed to adding one or more women to their boards.
Burr says those early days have taught us a few essential lessons: Managing multiple board appointments at the same time is difficult, and broadening the definition of “board member” may help.
“It’s really hard to search 20 boards at once,” Burr says. “It’s [also] “It’s hard to pick a point in time and say, ‘We’re going to do this right now.’ It’s demand-driven; it’s driven by vacancies on the board, people retiring or leaving. So the way we’ve evolved is more of an on-demand approach.”
When there’s no need for a new board member — Burr admits that many talks have stalled when there was no open board seat and creating one would be difficult — it’s crucial to rethink what it means to serve on a private company’s board.
“You have more room for creativity in private companies,” Burr says. “If we define a board member as someone who is in the room, has a voice and is paid, then the missing piece of the equation is voting rights, and that’s really the least important thing in private boardrooms. It’s very rare that anything gets voted on.”
“You want a board that represents the consumers you serve.”
To date, Women on Boards has helped connect 60 women with board roles, with 10 matches this yr. The organization continues to recruit consumer investors as its sponsors. Strong word-of-mouth referrals from these investors’ portfolio corporations and external entities are helping the project grow and improve its offering.
Needless to say, Burr knows what it takes to create a well-balanced board — and he suggests organizations keep two things in mind to do it effectively.
First, be critical of “exclusivity” in the boardroom. You don’t necessarily want any member to feel singled out, Burr says.
“In this context, I certainly mean the only woman, especially if your target consumer is mostly women — that’s problematic,” she explains. “You want a board that represents the consumers you serve. You also can think about exclusivity in other contexts, the only person of color. Again, especially if it’s a large goal consumer, it’s hard to represent [those consumers] if you are the only voice that may speak for them.”
And once again, don’t let the limiting idea of ”board ready” keep you from choosing a candidate who is well-prepared in his or her own right.
“Don’t underestimate the drive, passion, energy and importance of first-time board members,” says Burr. “These people are often part of the leadership team of the fastest-growing or most successful newly acquired companies, and they will bring that critical expertise to your boardroom.”