Satellite Sisters: Nobody puts Liz Dolan, Serena Williams or American Pharoah in a corner.
We start today’s Satellite Sisters with a tale of corporate governance. I promise it has a few laughs along the way, like the sound effects I make of my head exploding. You’ll find the Audio Player at the bottom of this post.
This is 20-time Grand Slam Winner Serena Williams at the French Open this week. It’s also how we imagine how she would look if you said, “Serena, please go sit in that corner and be silent. We do not care to hear from you.”
I was the subject of a story in the Wall Street Journal this week based on my resignation in protest from the Board of Directors of a publicly-traded company. Please listen to the whole conversation with Julie, Lian and me.
I resigned from the board of Quiksilver because my fellow directors left me out of their conversations about firing one CEO and appointing another CEO. You can read my post from Fortune Magazine here.
Hiring and firing the CEO is the most important job of a corporate director.
Because I had a previous professional relationship with the (now-former) CEO, the board assumed they knew how I would have voted based on a biased assumption that I’d vote to keep my “friend. ” Because that’s what girls do, right?? Make emotional decisions about friends instead of strategic decisions based on business facts?
They said to me, “We thought you would be too conflicted.” What? Too conflicted to carry out my duties as a director? Too conflicted to act in the best interests of the shareholders? Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys. You were not conflicted? You are the ones who actually hired him.
The second more critical issue is that instead of letting my voice be heard, they chose to SILENCE me.
I learned an important lesson here: even when you have earned a seat at the table, they can put you in a soundproof booth.
The third issue is that the four directors I spoke to personally after the fact all reinforced the idea that “it was very important that the CEO not know in advance what was happening.” These four fellow directors were completely unselfconscious about saying this to my face.
In other words, girls can’t keep a secret.
To several of them I actually said, “Do you even hear yourself??”
What I wanted my fellow directors to hear from me when I spoke to them one-on-one was this:
Some directors are not more equal than other directors.
I was elected to the board because I am an accomplished global marketer, which is what Quiksilver needed, not because I was Andy’s friend. I wish you had seen me as an accomplished professional, as your peer. You did not.
I believe the assumptions about me were the result of an unconscious gender bias. (Girls can’t make tough calls. Girls can’t keep secrets. But, luckily, girls won’t speak out when we marginalize them.) I do not believe that a male former colleague of the CEO would have been marginalized in the same way. I also do not believe that I would have been treated this way if there were other women on that board.
I know that women are underrepresented on corporate boards of publicly-traded companies. I was proud to be one of them. I am disappointed that I could not continue. I decided that I could not continue to serve on the board because the rest of the board clearly did not trust or respect me. Because of this breach, I could not rebuild my trust in them. My professional life will go on. Maybe I will even find other board seats in the future, but I am satisfied that I did the right thing.
On the lighter side, we will use any flimsy excuse to share this photo of Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Julie especially enjoys it because she remembers how our older brothers mainly enjoyed stuffing us into diaper pails or putting us into the dryer.
On today’s Satellite Sisters, we also cover some other subjects:
Lian has an astronomy report. Are you familiar with the behavior or Pluto’s moons? They tumble and wobble chaotically in space. Sound like your life?? Ours, too!
Julie has a royalty report. She salutes Triple Crown Winner American Pharoah, French Open and 20 time Grand Slam Winner Serena Williams and, of course, Prince George and Prince Charlotte just for being so dang adorable.
To listen to more Satellite Sisters shows, go here. For a previous discussion between Lian and Liz specifically on the subject of the importance of women speaking up in the workplace, go to our March 29 show. The conversation starts 20 minutes in and develops many of the themes we pick up today.
To read my piece from Fortune Magazine, click here: http://fortune.com/2015/06/15/liz-dolan-quiksilver-board/
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