From Boardrooms to Breakthroughs: Coco Brown on Women in Leadership

[00:00:10] Hey everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, president of Career Club and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. I am over the moon with our guests today. We've got Coco Brown who is the founder and CEO of the Athena Alliance and I'm going to read a little bit of this because I don't want to mess it up. It's an organization dedicated to helping women break into boardrooms. That sounds like they're stealing. Break into boardrooms and executive leadership roles. Through Athena she's built a powerful network of I believe 20,000 plus women that not only have a network of women, but also have a network of women.

[00:00:39] not only opens doors to board opportunities, but also, and this is really important for me, reshapes how women position themselves as business leaders. With a background in tech, executive leadership and board advisory, Coco has first-hand experience navigating the challenges of corporate leadership and she's on a mission to change the game for others. And with that, Coco, welcome. Thank you. Yeah. So we met through a friend, I think somebody in the investor relations community, obviously who's dealing with

[00:01:09] boards and I have so much enjoyed our conversations. I've enjoyed learning more about you and we'll get into the meat of it here in just a few minutes, but just to help people get to know you a little bit as is our want to do. If you don't mind if I ask you just a few icebreaker questions. We'll go easy on the first one. Where were you born and raised? I was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And I was there for about three and a half years. So I was mostly

[00:01:39] raised in Oxford, Pennsylvania. And I was joking with you earlier that I was raised in a barn. But I've lived on three continents. We did have a stint in France and Switzerland and I've spent the last 30 plus years out in California. Wow. So see, this is what's cool about even asking super basic questions. When you say Kuala Lumpur, our daughter lived in KL for a year. Oh, really? I love KL.

[00:02:09] I love Southeast Asia. I love Southeast Asia. Yeah. As did she. And like she came to have a whole appreciation for a part of the world she'd never been in before. The exception of the humidity, maybe. But other than that, she really liked it. And then where did you go to school, Coco? What's your college?

[00:02:28] Well, so I went to Westchester University to start because my mom taught there and I could get an $8,000 a year education. But then I transferred to University of Pennsylvania. And so my degrees come comes from Penn. Awesome. Very cool. And then just a little bit about your family.

[00:02:51] Oh, boy. Eclectic travelers. Definitely travelers. My dad had, he's in his mid-80s, PhD in economics and taught economics at the University of Malawi and University of Malaysia and traveled the world. He was a tourist in Vietnam during the war. Like just a crazy traveler.

[00:03:13] Wow. Not, not, not, not, not a, not the average human being at all. And then my mom also has a PhD in, she, she, she's kind of a first in a lot of ways for one of the first women to live off campus. One of the first women to get a scholarship, particularly type of scholarship to go to Oxford to study and get her master's.

[00:03:40] Yep. And then, and then followed my crazy dad around for a while. I come from divorced parents and my husband and I've been together for over, I think it's 25 years this year or something like that. Nice. Congratulations.

[00:03:55] Congratulations. Two kids. It used to be two kids, a dog, a cat and a gecko, but the gecko is gone. So two kids plus a, a sort of foster. My kids are all in their twenties and the dog is 13 and a half and I don't know how old the cat is.

[00:04:19] That's funny. That's awesome. Sorry about the gecko. So I alluded just a little bit to your career background. Do you mind just, you know, kind of briefly painting a picture of life after college?

[00:04:31] Yeah. I, I've, I've, I've spent almost all of my career in California in Silicon Valley in tech. Um, I did have a brief stint in an unpaid internship at the UN, uh, when I first graduated. And I, I also had a brief stint at, um, Wachovia bank, uh, Wachovia bank card services division in Delaware. Um, as, and, and I spent about the first nine years of my career

[00:05:00] career in compensation design and, um, um, um, I love compensation design very early. One of my very earliest, um, uh, experiences there was doing board compensation analysis. And that was back in the early nineties when you couldn't, you know, everything wasn't online. You had to, um, you had to write in and, and request prospectuses and, uh, 10 Ks and whatnot. Um, it was kind of wild.

[00:05:30] But I did a lot of, uh, I did board comp and analysis for Wachovia bank card services for a company called Netframe, um, for, uh, another company Taos. I also did, um, less of compensation design at Taos, but I, I did it for a lot of, um, startups as well. So I, I was really involved in that in, in my first nine or so years. Um, so on the HR side of the house and, and then got really interested in, um,

[00:05:59] the kind of navigating motivation and diplomacy and working together and, um, ended up in, in that part of HR. Uh, and then I ended up working for a company called Taos, um, which I quickly ran, uh, rose through the ranks of, um, I became the VP of professional services when I was 28 years old, running, um, uh, consulting base of about 750 people.

[00:06:27] Um, opening offices all over the country and then shuttering them in the dot-com bust. And, uh, so we went from about a hundred million in revenue to 10 million in revenue and what felt like overnight.

[00:06:39] And I, I, this is relevant in that it's part of my career stories. I then became the president and COO of the company and the third owner of the business, kind of a refounder, if you will, um, grew that business back up to over 50 million, uh, was on the board for 12 years. Um, and, um, the company was eventually acquired by IBM, but I left a little before that and, um,

[00:07:07] um, started Athena 10 years ago, first as a, as a nonprofit and then as a commercial company, uh, four years ago. Cool. Okay. So before we jump into that, cause we are going to talk about Athena in just a second. Um, what do you like to do when you're not at work? We talked about dogs, cats. I can about travel somewhere in that answer.

[00:07:25] Yeah. My favorite thing to do is be with my kids. Um, you know, whatever they're doing, I like to be with them. Uh, that's my happy place is my, my people. Um, but other than that, I, I haven't done it very, very much recently, but I like to throw pots, not like pick them up and throw them, but on a wheel.

[00:07:49] That's hurling pots. Hurling pots. I don't like to hurl pots. I like to make pots. Yeah. Um, I, I like that. I love, I love volleyball, particularly beach volleyball. Are you tall? No, I'm, I'm five, three. I used to be five, three and three quarters. I used to be tall. I used to be taller. I've never been tall, but I used to be taller. Um, no, but I, you know, I like the setting and the, and, you know, the digging and, you know, that sort of part of it.

[00:08:19] You are a California girl then, aren't you? Well, I am now for sure. Yeah. You can do that a lot of that in Oxford PA? No. I mean, I was on the volleyball team in high school, but, but. Yeah. All right. So let's jump into, um, just very quickly, cause we'll, we'll do this more in a few minutes, but just to kind of level set people, uh, just sort of a little bit of background on what is Athena? How, what was the idea behind it and, and kind of what is it today?

[00:08:47] Yeah. Well, Athena, the, the origin of Athena started when I got a group of women together for dinner 20 years ago. And, and, and so it's sort of an, a strange story because I wasn't ever really intending to create a company out of a dinner group.

[00:09:06] But what happened was I would, our customer at Taos were CIOs and I kept meeting female CIOs who would, you know, sort of point out that there are very, very few of them. Um, and that was back in the early two thousands and I'd say, no, I know this one and that one and this one. And one of them said, well, why don't you get us together for dinner? And I said, sure. And then that became a thing. And we started having dinner every, not quite once a quarter, it was a little bit more than once a quarter.

[00:09:34] And, um, it grew and grew and grew and over the course of 10 years, that ecosystem, uh, became 150 some people. And now it wasn't just CIOs, but other C-suite and their direct reports. And, um, and so when I left Taos, I had this incredible community that I had been building for 10 years.

[00:09:55] And that incredible community said, you know, Coco, while you're looking for other things to do and, and figuring out what your next entrepreneurial endeavor is going to be, um, don't let go of this community. So I, um, essentially got a mandate from the community at first saying, why don't you work on a problem that is increasingly glaring, which is that we don't see any women in the boardroom.

[00:10:20] And people seem to think that's a pipeline problem when it's not. And so I, I started a nonprofit and I started it there. Um, and then I figured out a commercial company because I'm not really a nonprofit person. And also this is a, ultimately what we created is something that isn't, isn't a nonprofit. It should be a commercial company.

[00:10:44] And it's really about evolving the ecosystem of leadership at the top to, to meet the way modern business needs to operate. And, um, and that means it also needs to include women, but our vision was never, our vision statement is the same exact vision statement today as it was 10 years ago. And it didn't say women in it. It said, we want to see a world where the top of the business ecosystem, business ecosystem mimics the demographics of society as a whole.

[00:11:13] We just started with let's get women on boards. And then it became, wait a minute, boards isn't sufficient. In fact, that's such a small piece of it. Let's, you know, focus on something much bigger than that, which I'm happy to get into. Yeah. Awesome. So we're going to go all through all of that. But, you know, your, your story really isn't just about success. It is about transformation.

[00:11:34] And, you know, you told a story that I read about when you were the VP, 28 years old, and I think you like messed up at an offsite. Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell that story real quick? Cause I want to, I want to lead that into imposter syndrome. Yeah. I mean, it's burned in my brain. You know, they say you learn way more from your mistakes than you do from your successes. Right. So it was this, I had just become the VP of professional services.

[00:12:04] Very young, not experienced. I was a woman, a woman, a non-technical person running, you know, with, with technology leaders reporting to me in a technology company. And, you know, and, and, and the leadership around me was all older than me. A fair amount of it that reported to me was older than me. And that, which was not older than me, our consulting base, what that 750.

[00:12:33] So people of that, like 12 were women, you know, that our professionals in the field were because it was servers and networks and databases and, you know, data centers and all. It was largely men. And so that's my backdrop. So my, you know, I decided every good VP gets their team together for an offsite and all the other VPs were doing that.

[00:12:57] And so, you know, I created this two day offsite and I had all the agenda and the structure and the, you know, and, and the first day, just my view anyway. And I think we're all much harder on ourselves than other people are on, on, on us, but I, there were certain people within that experience that weren't particularly excited to see me succeed.

[00:13:22] So they weren't necessarily showing up ready to, you know, figure out how to make this a success. And I don't know that I had all the right sort of plans and structure to create success. So I fumbled and, you know, the pieces of it weren't coming together. And I remember driving home after that first day and just like, I can't go back tomorrow. Just crying, just bawling in my car. I cannot go back tomorrow. I can't do this. But of course I did.

[00:13:52] And, you know, eventually, I mean, I ran the company for 10 years after that. So it worked. You must have figured something out. But what does that tell you about people that get to a level of leadership and have a challenge or a situation that they haven't experienced before and can either draw the conclusion of like, I shouldn't be here at all.

[00:14:18] How did I get here or this is a new experience? Why would I know about this? You know, so kind of the confidence versus competence. And that's an unfair framework you can you can. No, I think it's I think it's I mean, what I have learned now at almost 55 years old and even then, you know, I've always been somebody who is very detailed.

[00:14:48] And I've always been determined, somebody who goes for it. Like I just there's a gnosis in me that knows I can do it, you know, that knows it's something I can do, not just that I want to. And that driver helps me overcome all of the insecurities because I it's like I'm I'm falling forward anyway. So I might as well catch myself.

[00:15:18] So that is helpful, that that disposition. I think it's also helpful that, you know, there were moments in my life that I I don't know why they stuck with me, but they that they became these sort of little nuggets of of confidence. I'm not sure I've told this story before, but my when I was working for a company called Netframe, I was working with the VP of engineering and I had been reading this book.

[00:15:43] I can't remember the name of the book now, but and it was talking about motivation and how to sort of create motivational experiences and opportunities. And because he was struggling with getting his team to perform. And so I sat down with him and at this point I'm 24 years old and I sat down with him and I said, I'm reading this book and this is what I'm learning from it. And these are the things I'm getting out of it. And he said, would you come teach that to my team? And I said, sure.

[00:16:11] And I was so proud of myself and I'm talking to my stepdad on the phone and he at the time was running Pennsylvania hospitals, all of Pennsylvania hospital with the exception of the doctors and nurses. So so so so all of the you know, all of facilities, janitorial services, you know, the food service, everything.

[00:16:35] Right. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know, I got asked to do this and I can't. And, you know, there's a part of me that's like, oh, my gosh, I'm 24. And the other part of me that's like, yeah, I know, you know, because when you're 24 and you think you know something, you're like, I know something. And they told me I do. And, you know, so so there's a bit of that. And then he's like, that's really interesting. Tell me about it.

[00:17:01] And then he takes this book and he reads it now. He's adapting it into his organization. I was like, wow, that's cool. So pair that story with another one, which is I remember him coming home one time and saying, I just got a new boss. And Coco, she's like not much older than you. And I remember him going through his own version suddenly of imposter syndrome.

[00:17:27] Like there was a part of him that was frustrated because he's like twice her age or more. Right. And part of him who was like, wow, this new young, you know, talent has come in with this fresher MBA. Yes, I have an MBA, but she has a fresher MBA and she has a fresher perspective. She comes in from this other kind of hospital system. And she's like, and he starts questioning himself. And I'm like, wow, that's interesting.

[00:17:53] You know, and that wasn't too long from around the time when I was getting that VP role and I'm questioning myself. And I'm like, you know, we're all just we're all just failing forward. Right. Like that that's what we're doing. And imposter syndrome exists as a very powerful tool if we harness it.

[00:18:12] You know, it's it's that not knowing what you're doing is a condition of, you know, it's it's it comes as part of challenging yourself. Of course, you don't know what you're doing because you're going out into uncharted territory. If you stayed in the zone of knowing what you're doing, you'd never do something new. So why do we even care that this thing called imposter syndrome syndrome exists? Why don't we just embrace it and and nurture it? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:42] I guess it's sort of the difference between, well, I've never been to that country before and I don't know anything. It's like, well, wait a minute. Like you just haven't been there. Why would you know about that? But you can go there and you can learn about it. Now you'll know about it. Yeah. But what you said, a couple of things. One is at some level, it probably is a necessary ingredient for success. I mean, it seems like it has to be a requisite ingredient for success because otherwise, as you said, well, you're not growing.

[00:19:11] So like you're just doing the same thing again for somebody else or the same place forever. Where's the fun in that? Yeah. But something that you said with your gnosis, which is not a word I use regularly. I love that word. But is you said, but I know I can do this. And I see a lot in my coaching practice. I'd love to hear your perspective is that's not actually a common mindset.

[00:19:40] There's a lot of negative tapes and, you know, the saboteurs and that kind of whole model of the negative things that people tell themselves. And I'm wondering, did you need to learn that optimism or did that come to you more naturally? No, I mean, I think that must be in me innately. And being also a three-time entrepreneur, my first attempt was when I was 20. I mean, a four-time depends on how you look at it.

[00:20:08] But my very first attempt was when I was 26 years old. And it was a big it wasn't a big failure. I created a product. I sold it to a bigger company, but I did not create a company. So in my sense, I felt like I flopped. But the reason I bring that up is because it's an entrepreneurial mindset. Like if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you have to be completely willing to hear people tell you no all the time.

[00:20:33] To have people tell you all the time that your idea is crazy, that it's not good enough, that you don't have traction, that your economics aren't right. That like everything constantly telling you, well, this isn't right. And it needs to be that. If you show your pitch deck to anyone, you're going to get, you know, a different perspective from every single person. It's like it's like an artist, you know, artists have to be willing to put their work on a wall and have everybody walk by and say, well, I don't like that.

[00:21:04] And I think, you know, that compulsion to do something. I think art is a great, you know, particularly artists who show in galleries and put their work out in the world. Like that compulsion to do that is for me is innate, not as an artist, but as a business creator, as somebody in, as a leader.

[00:21:33] I've always wanted to lead. I've always been like, sure, I can take that on. I want to lead. I want to lead. I want to lead. And that is what helps with, that's why I use the word gnosis is because it's like, I just know I'll figure it out. But I also realized, and this happened when I was, when I was 26 and I was at Netframe and I was creating this product.

[00:22:02] It was an early days, HTML based, fully customizable employee handbook and manager training tool. And I left Netframe and I was working on this product. And I reached out to the former VP of engineering and I reached out to the former senior director of software development.

[00:22:28] And they brought me, one brought me to a VC, the other brought me into his company and had me show the head of HR the product. And I realized that the world does rise to the occasion. You know, that if you are somebody who seeks support and seeks the external world and puts your ideas out there and are willing to accept what comes back to you, then, then that gnosis is also reinforced by the world helping you achieve it.

[00:22:58] Yes. No, I love that. You know, I probably say it much less eloquently, but, but you have to put yourself out there and otherwise nothing's going to happen. I wrote a job search masterclass called making your own weather because that's the idea. People think it's an uncontrollable, it just, it is what it's going to be. And there's nothing I can do about it.

[00:23:26] And I just like out of hand reject that mindset. It's like, but I can go do something about it. I can make sunshine. It's not denying the rain and the clouds and everything else, but that's the beginning of the story. It's, it's the frame. It's not the picture. Yeah. And I get to go paint the picture. Yeah. Can you turn for a minute, as you were talking about your entrepreneurial thing, you talked about an artist, you know, needing to be willing to put his or her art up on the wall.

[00:23:52] What you made me think about Coco is being like a career entrepreneur. Everybody's an entrepreneur when it comes to their career. You are starting something that's never been started before. It's your career. Right. And this is probably dumbing it down or extending the metaphor too far. But in some ways, like our meta, our resume is our piece of art that we're putting up on the wall.

[00:24:16] And, you know, what we see a lot is, again, particularly in job search, but more broadly with promotions and being recruited by recruiters and stuff like that is there's a lot of rejection. And the way I say it is the road to yes is littered with no. Yeah. Right. And you have to get, you know, enough anti-fragility built up to like, that's okay. Not everybody's going to get it.

[00:24:44] I don't need for everybody to get it. I just need enough people in job search. I need exactly one person to get it because I only need one job. But, you know, how can you sort of contextualize all that entrepreneurialism in advice that you would give somebody with respect to their career?

[00:25:05] Well, a big thing that I think is really, really important is in some ways we get too wedded to the resume. And I think, you know, when you're young and you're starting out in career, you're particularly if you didn't go into some very defined line, like to become a doctor or to, you know, study patent law or like.

[00:25:33] But if you, for example, studied marketing or business administration or psychology like I did, you walk into the career world and you're like, where do I go? I have no idea what to do.

[00:25:49] And you just kind of put yourself out there and, you know, you're making introductions and you're getting connections and you're talking about what you like and what you're capable of and you're illustrating. And one thing leads to another. And before you know it, you've started to develop and shape something. You're like, oh, there it is. Okay, now I got it.

[00:26:10] You know, and then now all of a sudden you're on a career track and somehow people get lost in this idea that there's a ladder when there's just not a ladder. And then we get caught up in titles and industries and companies. And we're on this, you know, we're in this frame that we all have seen before that is a pyramid. And we know it narrows at the top.

[00:26:37] And, you know, you've got to go through the rank and file to get to the next level, to the next level, to the next level. And then you put that ladder on top of it and you're like climbing. Instead of just thinking about it as like sort of meandering, you know, like we're all just sort of meandering our way as high as we want or can go. You know, things pull us out, whether it's family stuff or health stuff or just we don't want to do it. I don't like management, whatever it is. Like we stop where we stop.

[00:27:06] But that doesn't mean that the exploration stops and we can't just keep meandering and doing new things and doing different things. And so I would love for people to think, you know, if you think of a ladder instead, I mean, we've all heard the jungle gym. But think about that sort of snaking around. Like, yes, you're going to take setbacks. You're going to downgrade to a different role. And then you're going to go lateral.

[00:27:32] And then you're going to do something in an entirely different department. That's great. You know, like imagine your career even having a 50 year span, because now if our brains and our bodies are cooperating, what are we going to do in our 60s and our 70s if we don't continue to leverage the exciting skills we're developing and building?

[00:27:56] And so that would be the second thing I'd say is, what if you were to turn your resume and flip it on its side and think of it biographically instead of as, you know, as a ladder?

[00:28:09] Again, you know, sort of what are, and these are, this is what the, I think smart kids are doing right now, is that if you're in your 20s right now and you have some reason to believe that you might be able to live to 120, why would you think you need to figure out your life in your 20s? And even in your 30s or even in your 40s, like you should be skills building.

[00:28:32] And this is also another really entrepreneurial thing is just skill build, build relevancy, don't build titles and, you know, job levels and build relevancy, which is a very different perspective than, than climbing. No, you're right. But I mean, in fairness, right, because the old model was I got my degree from Penn. I'm good at this. I go work at General Electric for 40 years. I get a watch. I retire. I go to Florida. I die.

[00:29:02] Yeah. Right. And so it was very linear. And now, like you say, you know, you'll hear, I'm sure you probably use this term some, but it's more like a portfolio career. Yes. Right. And what's cool about that, and this is one of the things that we teach people is, you know, sometimes people are like, well, Bob, you know, I've got sales and operations. I've been in compensation. I've been in this industry, that industry, like which one should I do? I'm like, that's a false choice.

[00:29:32] That's like saying I've got eggs, milk, flour and sugar. Which one should I be? And I'm like, make a cake. Yes. Create this very unique value proposition that is uniquely you. You get to pick which ingredients and in which measure. Yeah. Right. Because back to your young people coming out of school, it's like, it's mostly a test for negatives. You don't know. And there's many, many good yes answers that you don't even know about yet. There's not a yes answer.

[00:30:01] That's good grammar. Right. But we want to stay away from the things we know we don't like or don't. Yeah. Right. So at least don't go do that stuff. And in the meantime, take it as an adventure. Yeah. And, you know, kind of just start to play and see what you like and like which one fits you and you kind of build off of that. So what you're suggesting really resonates. And it's more freeing to think that you can keep reinventing yourself.

[00:30:27] And if you are, you know, sort of looking, if you are on the job market and you're looking for the next thing, thinking about that in terms of like the application of your skills and your experiences, as opposed to the job titles that you most fit to. Now, that's hard because the system doesn't work that way. Right. The system says, you know, we're looking for somebody with this years of experience, this title and, you know,

[00:30:56] but that's where your network really matters. That's where, you know, if you want to be able to explore the world, you've got to go explore the world, you know, go to different conferences, you know, take classes, meet people in those classes, like do things that put you in experientially into different spaces that will allow you to get more exposure to more opportunities.

[00:31:25] Very quickly, because I'm looking at the clock and there's so much I want to talk to you about. But do you mind sharing just a little bit about when you talk about shifting your mindset to think more like a CEO and less like a functional leader? Because this is really important. And I think a page that most people don't see in the book that makes all the difference. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, so to set the context on that, I, a friend of mine, Suja Chandra Sakharan,

[00:31:52] and I started a CEO perspective series two years ago. And we've entered interviewed very prominent CEOs from the CEOs of Bank of America and MetLife and Cardinal Health and J.Crew and PagerDuty and American Cancer Society and Frontex, like all these really SAIC top tier CEOs.

[00:32:17] And, and then also just in the day to day of what I do, I've, I've spent a lot of time in the CEO world. And then also myself, you know, having had that experience, what there's two things that I would say about the CEO mindset. First of all, what got them there? What gets those CEOs to the top is a very exploratory, open-minded view about their career.

[00:32:47] So, you know, they, they took lateral moves. They took overseas assignments. They got fired. Most all of them. They, they, they changed departments. They went from this, you know, like Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America was a lawyer. They, they changed departments. They experienced the company. Yes.

[00:33:15] They did not think about a, a pure linear path. Now there's some exceptions to that, that like the CFO of, um, uh, I think it's Cardinal Health, um, a CEO. He was the CFO. Now he's the C, you know, that there's sometimes where that just happens, but for almost all of them, it was this very creative thing that landed them at the top.

[00:33:43] And so what they, their mindset was a business mindset. It was, how do I make myself an asset to this business? Not how do I get the next promotion? And they, for they, they, they, and they would forgo promotions. They would forgo that opportunity to, for the experience, for the, for the, the, the potential of what they saw in the project or the skunk works or the overseas assignment.

[00:34:12] And that's what got them to the top was that mindset. And then the second thing is in this business asset thing, you do not like, if you think about the pyramid, you don't get to the top of the pyramid without understanding the business. You just don't. There's three ways to get to the top of the pyramid. You start the company.

[00:34:32] And when you start the company, you're the bottle washer, you know, everything, you know, what the chart, you know, the articles of incorporation are, you know, what the bylaws are, you know, you know, you know, what, when you call in your legal team, you know, how hiring happens. You know, everything when, and then the second is that you fund the company, people who invest in companies at early stages and end up at the top, you know, on the board. They also understand the whole company. They understand how to read the findings, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:35:01] The third way to get to the top is to climb the ladder. So you get into, you know, next role, you get the titles and then you become the chief marketing officer or the chief revenue officer or the head of CTO, whatever, right? But those people, in order to become that top coveted role, had to demonstrate that they understood the business. They understand the market they're in. They understand the competitors. They know how to read the P&L.

[00:35:31] They understand how compensation design happens. They understand the business. And so there's two things. There's the, you know, in terms of, there's the mindset that says, I'm going to explore this business. I'm going to be an asset to the business. And then there's the, the obligation they put in their head to understand how the business functions, to know what the marketing leader does and the engineering leader does.

[00:35:58] And we used to say that you should go get your MBA for all of that. But that's like, you even see young people in private equity firms saying, I'm not going to, I don't care that the private equity firm is going to pay for my MBA. I don't want it. I get a better MBA by being out in the world. And so, you know, getting an MBA is not sufficient. A, and it's also not the path a lot of people are taking. I don't have an MBA. Yeah. It's interesting. You've probably seen the Steve Jobs commencement speech that he gave, I think was Harvard Business School.

[00:36:27] He's basically saying, please don't go be a consultant. Go start something. Go run something. If you want to understand how business really works, go be in the business. Yeah. I want to go back to what you said kind of on the first part about, you know, the qualities of CEO. And they want to learn all this stuff.

[00:36:51] When I do my, you know, this podcast, I've got senior executives on, I'll often ask them, what are the talent attributes that you look for when you're like hiring people? You're interviewing, you're building your team. You know, what are the talent attributes that you're really, really trying to suss out? Almost always. The number one thing is curiosity. It's just, are you curious? Because I can't make you be curious.

[00:37:19] If you are curious and you want to learn how the business works and you really do have this innate desire to want to learn, we have everything to talk about. But, and you can kind of pick up pretty quickly. This person's actually not that curious. They're an expert in what they're an expert in, but they're actually not curious. They know a lot about something which is different than being curious.

[00:37:44] So, I think that's very cool what you guys have teased out, you know, across your experience and in your podcasts and stuff. Let's move on quickly because, again, I do want to be mindful of the time, is the Athena Alliance. And thank you for highlighting the mission or the vision of diversifying boards so they look more like the customers that they serve, if I got that close enough. But it didn't specifically say women.

[00:38:10] That said, you said at the beginning kind of the origin story was it did actually start with women a lot. I'll go either way that you want to go with that. But, you know, getting to the C-suite is one thing. It's a way to go and that's giant. But then a lot of people want to go to that one next place in their corporate journey, which is the boardroom.

[00:38:35] And so, what is the difference, if this is a fair question, is there a difference between a great executive and a great board member? Yes. And also, I guess I want to back up for a second and just say, so our vision is about making sure that the demographics at the top of business society mimic the demographics of all of society. And then we started with our first mission.

[00:39:04] You know, it's like Mission Impossible. The mission's changed, right? We started with our first mission was get women on boards. And then we've evolved that mission. And the reason I want to clarify that is because part of the evolution of revolving that mission is we saw what you just said, which is a lot of people spend their, you know, a significant part of their life in this corporate career structure.

[00:39:29] And they think that the top of that corporate career structure is the boardroom. And so, there's all these people striving to get into the boardroom. And one big realization for me is like, that's not the end all be all. Like that's not the representation of a pinnacle of a career. And so, that's a whole other conversation.

[00:39:52] But, you know, to answer your question, for those people who are, you know, really thinking I want to go do corporate governance, board work, the difference in sitting in the boardroom versus sitting in the C-suite. You know, you have the boardroom, you have the CEO, and you have the C-suite, right? Like they sort of, you know, mimic each other. You've got like this mirror image with the CEO on the inside or in the middle.

[00:40:19] And the C-suite is, you know, really executing on the strategy of the business, running the business day to day, making sure it gets to where it's headed. And the board, and they operate, you know, as a collective, but less so than the board, right? So, I'm running marketing, you're running engineering, and yes, we get together and we sort of talk. But the board runs as a collective.

[00:40:44] And so, the board is, oftentimes, it looks similar to the C-suite, maybe in skill sets. But the experience of the board is at that next line on the horizon. You know, the company is a billion-dollar company. The board represents the $13 billion company. The company is a $100 million company. The board represents the billion-dollar company. The board's private today, you know, or the company's private.

[00:41:13] Like that sort of thing, right? So, there's this. And so, that in part is about helping to really set the strategy and helping to really guide the thinking of the company as to what's out there and what's possible. But then also oversee the core elements of health to get there. You know, the person at the helm, the CEO. Helping ensure that person can be successful.

[00:41:42] And if that person needs to go for whatever reason, the board has to step in there, right? And replace them, do something. But they really want to make that CEO successful. So, they're there to support and help that. But they're also there to, you know, sort of make sure that all of the health metrics of the business are there. That the regulatory things are being done.

[00:42:09] And so, long story short, the C-suite's about executing. The board is about overseeing. So, the traits that you bring into one room versus the other are very different. And it's also different. It's more collaborative. It's more, you know, you're talking, you're coming to agreement across for the whole business. And you're not directing. You're overseeing.

[00:42:38] And you're guiding and advising. So, I think about, as you're describing that, which was super helpful. And I love the CEO sandwich. By the way, that was interesting. But, I could be, again, very competent in my C-suite role. Like, I'm a great CTO or CFO or whatever. But I heard you say, there's a very strategic, got to take a look down the road. Like, where do we want to be?

[00:43:07] And what do we need to get there? Kind of a view. So, one is, do you even think like that? And then, two is, there seems like, so if I'll call that competence in strategic thinking. But, two is commitment. Because I'm sure you see, like, lazy board members. And, like, you know, this is a great paycheck. And it's cool on my CV and whatever. But I'm not that invested in this thing. Or the CEO is my friend.

[00:43:37] And that's kind of how I got here or whatever. Like, how do you sort of tease out those things or would encourage your clients as they're thinking about who to pick to be on boards? Like, is this the way they think? And will they really be committed? Well, I think boards are in a constant state. Well, nowadays, they're in a constant state of evolution. It used to be that you could just sail into the sunset. And it was, you know, back when retirement was a thing.

[00:44:07] It would be your golden years, you know, this way of kind of exiting. But, and that created a bit of a lazy mentality, I think. And, but nowadays, there's much more scrutiny. And so boards are more active spaces. And the more you bring really good talent onto boards, the more that really good talent is forcing the board to become broadly great talent.

[00:44:36] By, you know, even though it takes time, it's hard to exit. That's a whole other thing. But it's hard to exit bad board members. But mentally more than it is actually. But that's, but I guess my, what I'm trying to say is that's shifting. But if I'm the CTO, if I'm that C-suite executive and I'm looking at like that question of do I belong in a boardroom and, you know, am I, what do I do?

[00:45:05] You know, is that, is that transition something I can make? One indication that you're not ready for it is let's, you know, a lot of times the C-suite does come in and present to the board. Yeah. And a great indication that you're not ready to take a board seat is if you go in and present and you don't know what the other C-suite leaders are presenting and that everything that you're saying is aligned to what they're saying, that it's like a really cohesive whole.

[00:45:31] You can imagine the marketing person coming in and saying this and the salesperson coming in and saying that and they don't mesh. That's an indication that you're, you're, you're not even necessarily a great C-suite leader. And your CEO has a bit of a challenge because when you're coming into that boardroom, they need to see clarity and they need, you know, they don't, for example, who do they talk to? The CTO, the CIO, the CISO, like in the, in the end, in the technology space, it's like, do we have to talk to this person for that?

[00:46:01] How do you organize that so that they get the message that they need? You know, it's all integrated. When you start thinking like that, then you're thinking like a board member. Right. Um, so I think that's, that's, that's what I'm talking about. Business savvy too. That's what I'm talking about, about these CEOs. Like they became CEOs because they were already CEOs. Hmm. Yeah.

[00:46:22] I love, well, which gets back to thinking like a CEO and learning the business and understanding, as you see, that fully integrated view of the business and what drives it. Um, with Athena, cause I, I feel like I'm, I'm not giving enough time to this. How, how do you guys then help your members become better prepared to become great board members? Well, okay. Well, okay.

[00:46:50] So the, the way I think about this, first of all, I am increasingly saying to people that don't join Athena just because you want to join boards. That's, that's a really, there's so much more to you than that. You know, you can do like, for example, one of the things I'm super interested in, I love young companies. And so advisory work is great.

[00:47:12] Um, you know, getting involved in investing and in the private markets and, you know, sort of seeing 43% of public companies started as venture backed private companies. Get involved in that because that's where you can get on boards, right. And, and advisory work and all, but start companies too. Like it, like there's so much more we can do or take a, you know, expand your C-suite role, expand that I think people are thinking too limited. So that's one thing.

[00:47:42] Um, but the, the, if you're, if you're set on joining a board, the, the thing I encourage people to do is think about it the way a young person would be thinking about. I'm graduating high school. A, am I going to college? If I'm going to college, what kind of, am I going to a community school? Am I going to an Ivy league school? Am I going to a really large one, a small one? Is it liberal arts? Is it engineering?

[00:48:12] Is it in a cold place? Is it in a hot place? You have to ask yourself, what is the landscape? I mean, do we even know how many education systems there are at that higher? Is it 16,000? Like, do you know how many boards exist? And do you know what their shape is? Because they differ based on four key criteria. Capital structure, public, private equity, venture capital, ESOP, family owned, right?

[00:48:43] Size, 10 million, a hundred million, a trillion. Business model. Is it a SaaS company? A brick and mortar? And an industry. Is it consumer products? Is it airline? Right? Those four factors are kind of like GPA, SAT score. You know, you understand how you fit against those four factors.

[00:49:12] That will help you directionally figure out how you fit in this landscape of 40,000 or more companies, independent board directors. And you build a strategy. A strategy is not, I have a board bio that translates my career from an operator into who I am as an overseer. And now I'm telling everybody I want a board seat. That is not a strategy.

[00:49:36] So what I love about this is, again, understanding what is your unique value proposition first. And then secondly, who do I target this and why to where I fit in, right? And where am I going to thrive and add the most value to them? I'm curious, Coco, kind of as we start to close out here a little bit.

[00:49:57] In your experience, maybe 20 years ago and now, are there unique challenges that women face in this regard? Yeah. There's a number of unique challenges women face. I think, you know, we're over.

[00:50:21] We as society have a sense of attributes tied to gender. We see this going on, this big debate about masculinity and femininity. And as a society and for, you know, tens of thousands of years, probably, we've gendered attributes, you know, risk taking and all of the, you know, vulnerability and all that.

[00:50:44] And that putting people in boxes in a sense has also held women back from being able to be considered for roles and opportunities that they totally qualify for.

[00:51:06] Because, because we as humans are kind of tribal and we look for people like ourselves, the younger version of us or the person I can relate to. And that really gets in the way of women being able to participate at the highest levels of society. I mean, we, women hold 17% of private company board seat roles, 17%. And over 30% of private companies have no women on the board at all.

[00:51:34] That's still in 2025? Yes. Yes. And, and less than 2% of venture funding goes to women. And that's, and it's 1.6% to be precise. And in certain places like Boston, it's like 0.06%. Like, why? And it's largely, you can, you can say it's for all sorts of, you know, reasonable, logical reasons, but there, it's just not.

[00:52:03] When the numbers are that abysmal, there's something wrong because it's not that women don't want to start companies, be investable, be in the C-suite, be on boards. We, we want that. So there's something societal that's locking that. So if you had to, if you had to identify one or two, three reasons, what are they?

[00:52:28] I think, I mean, one, and sorry, I have to run in a second as I have a meeting with the head of DEI for Bank of America. I, one or two, I would say tribalism. I mean, I think we, we go with what we know, right? I mean, you know, our, our neighborhoods are set up that way. Our schools are set up that way. Our friends systems, our families, you know, it, it, we're kind of tribal.

[00:52:54] And, and then, you know, a little, I think a second would be that an attitude of if it ain't broken, don't fix it. So it's, it's, you know, we, we know some of us that, that companies run better when they're diverse, but the opposite argument of that is they're running just fine right now.

[00:53:15] Look at, you know, look at business is booming or, you know, even when it's not like, so it's kind of like trying to tell somebody to eat broccoli. Yeah. When they want to eat M&Ms, you know, they don't necessarily know that it's not an immediate impact or a, you know, they don't know the difference. I don't know, maybe that's a bad analogy, but, but, but I think those two things are the, the two really big ones. That's fine. And I know you've got to go.

[00:53:44] If people want to learn more about the Athena Alliance, what's the best way to do that? Well, our website would be one. We also, if you go to our website, go to our events page, because we often invite the public to like every one of our CEO perspective series that we do, where we interview these prominent CEOs. We open that up to the public. So go to our events page and check out what's open to the public. Awesome. Coco, thank you so much.

[00:54:12] I knew that we would have more content than we had time. And I also know you're very in demand. So I'll let you get on to your next call. But thank you so much for joining us today. Likewise. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you everyone for listening today. And we will see you on the next episode of Career Club Live.