theBoardlist, the leading resource for increasing gender diversity on corporate boards, and our Global Sponsor, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, invite you to an interactive session that will give you the insider’s perspective into the nuances of private and public company board service.
We’re hosting two separate panels staffed with industry leaders and board experts to discuss the role of the independent board member on both private and public boards. Our panelists reflect a wide range of expertise, and include:
- Peter Clarke
- Anne Dwane
- Karla Martin
- Carol Mills
- Donna Petkanics
- Merline Saintil
- Allison Berry Spinner
You’ll learn about:
- Private board compensation
- Working with investors and shareholders
- Dealing with conflict (internally and externally)
- The differences between private and public board service
- Legal issues and liabilities for public board members
This event is designed for experienced CEOs, founders, and other senior executives who are ready to join a private or public board or already have experience on a private board and are looking to join a public board.
Space is limited; RSVP to secure your spot for this unique and informative event.
Peter Clarke joined Accel in 2013 and he leads Accel’s talent and recruiting efforts.
Prior to Accel, Peter was VP of talent at Greylock Partners. He joined Greylock from True, a boutique retained executive search firm, where he was a founding partner.
Before shifting into the world of entrepreneurs and executive talent, he was a software integration architect for Boeing where he helped define the framework for the comprehensive services system that would support Boeing's newest airplane.
Peter graduated from SUNY Brockport. He has a Masters in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon.
Anne is passionate about aligning teams and technology to unleash human potential. She’s served as a tech company founder, venture-backed CEO, public company executive, and venture capitalist. As an operator, she built high performance teams that scaled from startup through IPO and created services used by tens of millions of people.
She led 2 companies to acquisition by Monster and Chegg and managed 6 acquisitions. Anne has a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
She's a member of the Henry Crown Fellowship at the Aspen Institute and now an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School.
Lesley Grossblatt is the COO of theBoardlist. Lesley oversees development of theBoardlist's board candidate discovery and recommendation platform and overall direction of theBoardlist's growth strategy.
Previously, Lesley led product, innovation and growth efforts at Netflix, Intuit, AltSchool, Nextdoor and CreativeLive.
Lesley was recently named to Fast Company's 2017 Most Creative People in Business List and has been a featured speaker at Fast Company's Innovation Festival, the inaugural Women in Product conference, The Girls Lounge and Intuit's Create the Offering and Design for Delight conferences.
Previous to her current role as COO at InspiredLuxe, Karla was a partner at Booz & Company where she helped lead the West Coast technology practice and started and led the global Retail and Luxury Goods. After leaving Booz, Karla worked at Google as the Director of Global Business Strategy and Strategic Planning and served as the Interim Head of Retail Innovation at Shopkick.
Karla currently serves as the COO of InspiredLuxe.com and serves on the boards of The Center for Reproductive Rights, Hathway, 3VR, Purple Squirrel, LookyLoo, The Global Chamber, and Onor.net.
She has an AB with honors in Sociology and Economics from Harvard University and a JD with honors from Harvard Law School
Carol Mills spent 25+ years in CEO and other senior operating executive roles and now serves as an independent board member and CEO consultant.
She is currently the Board Chair for Xactly Corporation (XTLY) and serves as a member of the Board of Directors for RELX Group (RELX) and is also on the Board of Zynga, on the Audit and Compensation committees.
She previously served as a member of the board of directors of Ingram Micro (IM), Adobe Systems (ADBE), WhiteHat Security, Alaska Communications, (ALSK), Blue Coat Systems (BCSI), Tekelec Corporation (TKLC), and Acta Technology. She has served as chair of multiple compensation, nominating/governance, special litigation, strategy, and CEO selection committees.
Earlier in her career, Carol held numerous operating roles, including CEO (Acta Technology), SVP and GM of $2-6B lines of business (Juniper Networks, Hewlett-Packard). She holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University and a BA in economics from Smith College.
Donna Petkanics is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati where she focuses on growth companies, particularly corporate and securities issues.
Donna represents both privately held and public companies across multiple industries, including telecommunications, Internet infrastructure, networking, life sciences, software and hardware, clean technology and energy, and electronics.
At WSGR since 1985, Donna has served in a number of management positions, including managing director of operations and chair of the Operations Committee from 2000 to 2006; member of the firm's board of directors and Policy Committee; chair of the Compensation Committee; associate managing partner of the firm; and co-chair of the Hiring Committee and Nominating Committee.
Merline Saintil is the Head of Operations for the Product & Technology (CTO Office) group at Intuit. Before joining Intuit, she served as Yahoo’s head of operations for Mobile & Emerging Products, and held a variety of roles at Sun Microsystems, Adobe, PayPal and Joyent. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Banner Corporation (BANR) – a $10.1B bank holding company in Washington state.
Ms. Saintil serves on the Anita Borg Institute’s Nominating Committee for the Technical Leadership ABIE Award and on the board of Watermark and Iridescent and is also a founding board member of CodePath.org.
She has received numerous awards for her contributions to her community and support of women in technology and was name by Business Insider as #6 on their list of the “22 Most Powerful Women Engineers in the World” and Women of Influence 2017 by Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Upon graduating valedictorian, Ms. Saintil received a B.S. from Florida A&M University, where she graduated summa cum laude. She earned her M.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and has completed Stanford Directors’ College and Harvard Business School’s executive education programs.
Allison Berry Spinner is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Her practice focuses on corporate and securities transactions in the technology sector. Allison's clients include companies in the software, networking, wireless communications, semiconductor, Internet, consumer goods, energy and clean technology, and retail industries. She regularly handles corporate governance matters for public and private companies, investment banks, and venture capital and private equity firms. Allison is currently co-chair of the firm's Career Development Committee.
Allison has been involved in 20+ public offering processes and also has extensive transactional experience in venture capital and private equity and debt transactions, as well as mergers and acquisitions involving both public and private companies. She has represented clients who have received funds from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates, Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Warburg Pincus, among others.
Prior to joining WSGR, Allison clerked in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is the premier legal advisor to technology, life sciences, and other growth enterprises worldwide. We represent companies at every stage of development, from entrepreneurial start-ups to multibillion-dollar global corporations, as well as the venture firms, private equity firms, and investment banks that finance and advise them. The firm's broad range of services and practice areas are focused on addressing the principal challenges faced by the management, boards of directors, shareholders, and in-house counsel of our clients.
theBoardlist is a curated talent marketplace for the tech community to recommend, discover and connect highly qualified women leaders with great tech board opportunities at scale.
Our vision is that 100% of tech company boards use gender diversity as an opportunity to realize greater company performance. By our estimate, 75-78% of private funded tech company boards have no women. Yet we know that board diversity is a proven driver of business performance. We also know that creating diversity earlier in a company's development allows us to create a more diverse and productive culture now, not later.
