Here are 6 female executives that show why the claim that male-dominated boards can’t find qualified women candidates is totally bogus

shannon gordon

Women are making marginal gains in landing board seats but continue to lag behind men in this important business position, according to theBoardlist, a network that helps connect startups with qualified female board candidates.
In September 2018 California created a law that required all public companies headquartered in the state to have to at least one woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019.
Shannon Gordon, CEO of theBoardlist, told Business Insider that founders and investors have to look outside their networks to broaden the candidate pool for board seats, especially since the roles are rarely publicly posted.
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Call it the pipeline problem, the talent shortage, or the lowered bar — Shannon Gordon thinks the explanations many founders and investors use to justify an all-male board are all fallacies.

As the CEO of theBoardlist, a network that helps connect startups with qualified female board candidates, Gordon is one of the foremost experts on gender diversity in the boardroom. Since taking over the organization from founder and president Sukhinder Singh Cassidy in May 2018, Gordon says she's seen proof that the pipeline problem just "doesn't exist."

"It's always been a challenge, especially with board seats because so many are filled through referral," Gordon told Business Insider. "You as a founder ask your buddies, or colleagues, or investors for recommendation, and those networks tend to be homogeneous. It hits women and minorities hard because these networks are CEOs or board directors. We don't have those connections."

Gordon said the outlook for gender parity at the board level is promising, especially with a new California law signed in September 2018 that required all publicly traded companies headquartered in the state to have at least one woman on the board by the end of 2019.

"I definitely think the tide is turning but none of us would say it's as fast as we want it to be," Gordon said. "If you as a founder don't have a deep network outside your investors, then you can leverage tools like theBoardlist that allow you to reach into other networks to find diverse candidates that meet your needs."

Singh Cassidy started theBoardlist in 2015 to help prove that it wasn't for lack of talent or the supposed pipeline problem that women weren't getting a seat at the board table. The network acts similarly to LinkedIn where members can search for candidates or list themselves as possible board candidates with specific areas of expertise.

"Be willing to look at leaders with the right experience even if they are not a CEO; the key is that they have relevant expertise to you in an area that is critical to your business," Singh Cassidy told Business Insider via email. "Set a mandate for the % of diverse candidates you expect to see in the pipeline; it doesn't just 'happen' naturally and needs to be a deliberate choice going in if you want a diverse board as the outcome."

Here are six of the top female executives from theBoardlist and what they could add to a startup's board:

Promise Phelon

Current role: Founding Partner, Sueño Growth Partners and Business Mentor, Defy Ventures

Experience: Promise Phelon is no stranger to the entrepreneur journey after founding three of her own ventures, including her current investment firm. Phelon got her start at BEA Systems, an enterprise infrastructure software company that was acquired by Oracle. There, she worked up to Director of Product during her three-year tenure and has gone on to lead software startups JazzHR and TapFluence. She is currently a business mentor for early-stage venture firm Defy Ventures.

Find her on: LinkedIn

Sakina Arsiwala

Current role: Head of Growth, Nextdoor

Experience: Sakina Arsiwala has helped monetize some of the world's most popular products for some of the biggest names in consumer tech. Arsiwala moved to San Francisco from Mumbai to get her Masters in Computer Science from San Francisco State University and worked as a software engineer at Altavista and Yahoo before landing a product lead role at Google. She cofounded Campfire Labs, a social networking startup that was acquired by Groupon in 2011, where she remained as Head of Social and Growth for the deals website. She has been leading Growth at local social network Nextdoor since 2016.

Find her on: LinkedIn

Ellie Mertz

Current role: VP of Finance, Airbnb

Experience: Stanford Business School alumna Ellie Mertz has led the finance divisions of video streaming powerhouse Netflix and more recently vacation rental startup Airbnb, which is expected to IPO by sometime next year. Mertz has been leading Airbnb's financial division as VP of Finance since January after a brief stint as interim CFO. Before joining Airbnb, Mertz worked her way up from senior manager of financial planning to VP of Finance and Investor relations at Netflix. She started her career at Thomas Weisel Partners as a financial analyst in 1999.

Find her on: LinkedIn

Nisha Ahluwalia

Current role: Member, Bowery Capital Revenue Council and Marketing Faculty Chair, Heavybit Industries

Experience: Nisha Ahluwalia has cut her teeth at some of the biggest enterprise companies in Silicon Valley. She has held marketing roles at conferencing software maker WebEx, enterprise software giant Cisco, and enterprise communications provider RingCentral before landing at developer management tool PagerDuty as Chief Marketing Officer in 2013. She has been advising startups in Bowery Capital's portfolio since 2015, where she focuses on early-stage enterprise software companies needing to generate revenue.

Find her on: LinkedIn

Cheryl Chavez

Current role: Chief Product Officer, Engagio and Fellow, Sapphire Ventures

Experience: Cheryl Chavez had built an impressive career in enterprise marketing software even before graduating from Stanford Business School in 2016. She spent the early years of her career as a Product Manager for enterprise software giant Oracle, customer support management software maker Blue Pumpkin, online infrastructure provider Verisign, and client relationship management software maker Nextance. She helped take Marketo, a marketing software provider, private during the lead up to a planned IPO in 2017 and has been leading the product division at marketing software tool Engagio since September 2018.

Find her on: LinkedIn

Dawn Callahan

Current role: Chief Marketing Officer, Boingo Wireless

Experience: Dawn Callahan knows exactly what it takes to run marketing for a public company, having held senior leadership roles over the past two decades at Time Warner and Boingo Wireless. She started at Boingo Wireless in 2007 as VP of Marketing, and has worked up to the C-suite during her 12-year tenure. Prior to joining Boingo, Callahan led sales and marketing for telecom giant Time Warner for the Digital TV, Internet, and Phone divisions. Callahan helped take Boingo Wireless public in 2011, and has overseen just about every division of sales, marketing, public relations, and customer service during her time with the organization.

Find her on: LinkedIn