On May 16, 2018 – just a little over a year after Dennis Lanham began his role as Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Executive Center (SVEC) in the Leavey School of Business (LSB) at Santa Clara University (SCU) –  he presented his vision of the Center’s future to the Leavey School of Business  advisory board. Part of that presentation was a short list of potential new programs that he was considering at the time and included thoughts of a Women’s Leadership program which he had experience creating in both of his preceding executive education leadership roles at the University of Nebraska and Georgia State University. At the end of his presentation, Bethany Mayor, a sitting advisory board member of the school who was in attendance that day, commented that instead of pursuing a general Women’s Leadership program, he should instead consider standing up a program to help executive women be considered for corporate directorships. “There are a number of incredibly talented women executive leaders here in the Valley, who should be on the radar of CEOs, nom/gov chairs and board directors for consideration when board seats open up, but who aren’t currently being considered,” said Mayor. “And, I frequently get
calls to consider joining new boards and having to redirect them to others who are qualified because I’m boarded up.” Lanham and Mayor discussed the idea more deeply after that meeting ended and he walked away from that board meeting energized to pursue the idea further.

The Idea for WCBR Takes Shape

The underrepresentation of women voices in the boardroom was a clear problem, and a program dedicated to addressing that gap spoke very directly to core the Jesuit value of a commitment to social justice. Additionally, the State of California at the time was in consideration of passing a new law that would require California-based public companies to have women on their boards. The potential new Women’s Corporate Board Readiness (WCBR) program was aligned with our Ignatian identity and timing seemed perfect.

The following day, Lanham brought this idea to his fellow dean’s team colleague, Theresa Strickland, who was the assistant dean for marketing at LSB at the time. They had both previously spoken about the idea of creating a women’s leadership program and Strickland was keen on helping Lanham build a program which would develop women executive leaders. Strickland was an industry executive and successful entrepreneur herself and recognized the desperate need for more women voices in the boardroom. After a short conversation about the idea from Mayor, Lanham asked Strickland to consider working with him to explore the opportunity of creating a program like this. Strickland agreed.

Vision for the WCBR Program Develops

On July 27, 2018, after several short conversations about the potential program, Lanham and Strickland met for the first formal planning meeting to discuss the potential of this new WCBR program. The questions that drove that discussion are documented as follows:

• What do new women board members need to know to be successful as directors (especially in their first few years)?
• What are 3-5 key learning objectives that we want for the WCBR program?
• What programs are already offered in the market; program length, price point, online vs. in person, etc.?
• What SCU faculty and external consultants would be good to bring together as the facilitation and coaching team for this WCBR program?
• How can we connect participants in this program to the recruitment pipeline for board opportunities post-program?
• What organizations are we connected to that could help us get this program off the ground?
• What is our timeline?

 

From these key guiding questions a number of program features emerged around a WCBR program model that we believed would be quite unique and built to maximize impact:

1. We wanted to go beyond a certificate program that would help senior women executives learn how to transition from operating roles to governing roles. We wanted to help connect them to opportunities to actually join boards.
2. We wanted all of the modules to be taught by women with lived experience and subject matter expertise, and therefore we wanted to have a program facilitator and mentor roster that would be made up of 100% women. This would be a program for women, by women.
3. We wanted to create a safe space to talk about the realities and responsibilities of being a woman on a corporate board. We wanted to facilitate rich discussion on gender disparity in corporate governance and on how to navigate the unique experiences of women corporate directors vs. their male counterparts.
4. We wanted each participant to be paired with a mentor who had lived experience as a women corporate director. The concept of accompaniment with intention to help in the formation of others is closely tied to Jesuit education tradition, and mentors with lived experience could help WCBR participants navigate difficult parts of the journey to board directorship.
5. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to control placement of our talented alumni’ directly, therefore the best way to help participants connect to potential placement opportunities would be through partnerships with organizations that are stakeholders in the corporate director search space.

The WCBR Network is Built

Over the next nine months, Lanham and Strickland worked collaboratively to pull together the group of module facilitators, mentors and advisors they would need to successfully launch their vision for this new intense 4-week certificate offering. Caryn Beck-Dudley, the then dean of LSB, was instrumental in this process. She was excited about the idea of this new offering in the executive education center and leaned on her own personal network and the advisory board network of the School to help Lanham and Strickland pull together an appropriate group of executive women leaders that would support the learning and network connectivity aims of the program. Simultaneously, they began a marketing and sales campaign to spread the word about this new program and began to recruit executive women leaders to build the inaugural cohort. 

As they approached launch, it was clear that this program model would be fueled by an influential community of changemakers who locked-arms and committed to the work of increasing representation of women in corporate governance. This program was a new impact-based offering that tapped into the Jesuit commitment to social justice, and the community was largely born out of the School’s own leadership network. 

WCBR Launches

The program idea became reality with the launch of the first WCBR cohort on May 02 of 2019 which included 13 seasoned executive women. The WCBR program was the foundation for the Black Corporate Board Readiness (BCBR) program that launched less than two years later in February of 2021, also in the Silicon Valley Executive Center at SCU.

Strickland and Lanham, along with the suggestion by Mayor, are equally credited for their vision for a program model that would directly challenge the myth that there is a lack of underrepresented board-ready talent that is prepared to serve on public and private corporate boards. Both the WCBR and BCBR programs have had a significant impact in connecting networks to assist women and Black executives on their journey to the boardroom.