Speaker 1: Enjoy this throwback episode of Black Tech, Green Money holiday season.
Speaker 1: You you know the board of your company when you
Speaker 1: should know them, right and when you're sitting in the
Speaker 1: C suite or or have some kind of a role
Speaker 1: that requires that you interface with them on a regular
Speaker 1: basis or any basis, that's fine. Otherwise I assure you
Speaker 1: you will not become a member of the c suite
Speaker 1: if you spend your time trying to get to know
Speaker 1: your directors. You should try to spend your time getting
Speaker 1: to know your job. I'm well, look as this is
Speaker 1: Black Tech, Green Money, and I'm so excited to bring
Speaker 1: you this episode because I was there in real time
Speaker 1: when it happened. This is the conversation that happened at
Speaker 1: Afro Tech Executive in Brooklyn, and it was with the CEO,
Speaker 1: the former CEO of ze Rox, Miss Ursula Burns, who
Speaker 1: was CEO of Xerox from two thousand nine. She was
Speaker 1: the first black woman to be c O a Fortune
Speaker 1: five company and the first woman to see another woman
Speaker 1: as had of a Fortune five visual company. Sister you
Speaker 1: all around. Most pertinent to today's conversation is her board roles.
Speaker 1: Miss Burns sat on the boards of directors for more
Speaker 1: than fifteen companies, including Boston Scientific, University of Rochester, m
Speaker 1: I T Corporation, American Express, Exim Mobile, Boolber, White Star,
Speaker 1: and more. During this conversation, which was held at a
Speaker 1: pro tech executive Brooklyn, have you you had a recurring
Speaker 1: theme you should not miss another apro tech executive. By
Speaker 1: the way, we're gonna be in d C in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. But anyway, back to today's conversation, she
Speaker 1: thought we had the Higles, managing partner at Black Ops
Speaker 1: Adventures and founder of path Right. If you have any interests,
Speaker 1: listen to me. If you have any interest in one
Speaker 1: day sitting on a corporate board, listen, keep your ears locked.
Speaker 1: And if you want to build a big company, listen,
Speaker 1: keep your ears locked. Because boards are where the decisions
Speaker 1: are made. Boards are where you where they decide if
Speaker 1: you're gonna keep your job as CEO. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, understanding how many work is the best thing
Speaker 1: you can do with your next forty minutes more. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Rsula Burns to see you. Welcome. Yeah, where's my cousin?
Speaker 1: Where's your cousin? Let's wait wait, where is she? Hi? Cousin?
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. She's my cousin and I
Speaker 1: always call her my niece because she's so much younger. Cousin.
Speaker 1: How your girlfriend. Yeah, we're glad you're here. Hey, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being here today. You are again
Speaker 1: one of these amazing pioneers that has paved the way
Speaker 1: and been a model to folks like myself and all
Speaker 1: the women in this room. So I want to start
Speaker 1: by saying, thank you so much for everything you've done,
Speaker 1: for being you. You know, I'm gonna give the real
Speaker 1: brief version because you've done so much that we don't
Speaker 1: have time to get into all that we want to
Speaker 1: hear from you directly. Okay, Okay, we go, but you know, um,
Speaker 1: your your legendary position as the CEO of Xerox and
Speaker 1: doing such a huge acquisition for them, and all the
Speaker 1: other things that you've been doing. We want to hear
Speaker 1: some of what you're doing today. UM. So I hope
Speaker 1: we'll get into it. So thank you so much. UM.
Speaker 1: We The last question we ended on I thought was
Speaker 1: very helpful, UM, which was, um, the question was is
Speaker 1: it enough to be a black woman and be the
Speaker 1: direct And Merlin's answer was absolutely not. And if if
Speaker 1: a person selecting you for a board just because of
Speaker 1: your demographics, that's not the board for you. So I
Speaker 1: think from the CEO UM perspective, what do constructive value
Speaker 1: add directors look like and how do they behave versus
Speaker 1: somebody who's kind of taking up airspace and and not
Speaker 1: helping the management team do their thing. Yeah, I heard
Speaker 1: the question the last couple of questions, and I must
Speaker 1: say I don't agree. Okay, I absolutely don't agree. Let's
Speaker 1: say this all the time. First of all, no company
Speaker 1: is going to come to you and say you're totally
Speaker 1: not a knowledgeable about anything to do with business. But
Speaker 1: but just because you happen to be black and a woman,
Speaker 1: were going to put you on the board. So that
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just not a viable company. So that
Speaker 1: I would, I would just that's not a thing that
Speaker 1: I mean unless they're absolutely ding dongs, which you wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to be with anyway. But so if they've come
Speaker 1: to you, they found you, they look at some kind
Speaker 1: of a profile and the reason why you are the
Speaker 1: next person that they would pick is because you're a
Speaker 1: black or a woman. I'd go just as quickly as
Speaker 1: not for so long we have been excluded because of
Speaker 1: the way that we look. I absolutely tell you, I
Speaker 1: say this all the time. It's about damn time that
Speaker 1: we were included because of the way that we look.
Speaker 1: So I absolutely okay. Now, this whole thing about being
Speaker 1: on boards, I gotta say, this is the I've been
Speaker 1: on It's not always crack up to be guys, be
Speaker 1: careful here. I mean, it's good and it's fun and
Speaker 1: it's all that stuff. You don't get anywhere near as
Speaker 1: much money as you think. It takes a ton of time.
Speaker 1: It's not doesn't always take a ton of time, but
Speaker 1: when it takes a ton of time, it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of time. And you can't say things like I'm
Speaker 1: busy like well, I mean that's the reason why you're
Speaker 1: sitting here. We want you to be busy on this right,
Speaker 1: not on other on other things. And sometimes it's just
Speaker 1: it's not fun. I mean you you know, you go
Speaker 1: on the boards of banks and insurance companies. Is that's
Speaker 1: not your thing? You sit there and try to figure
Speaker 1: out what that am I doing here? That's the and
Speaker 1: then the last is the group of people that you're with.
Speaker 1: Forget the management team, but the directors. If they're not
Speaker 1: worth your time. Don't go because you'll it just isn't
Speaker 1: that much fun. It's the thing that we're all running
Speaker 1: after now. But that thing has been run through by
Speaker 1: white guys already, and now they're handing it to us
Speaker 1: and saying, women and you can do it right, we're coming.
Speaker 1: So I I actually I like boards. Yeah, I like boards.
Speaker 1: I don't get me wrong. It's an important thing to do.
Speaker 1: If you can do it, you gotta be unbelievably selective.
Speaker 1: Unbelievably selective. I mean, what are you selecting for? First
Speaker 1: of all, the team with people that you're gonna be
Speaker 1: sitting around the table with the other directors. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: second is the company. I mean, you know I've been
Speaker 1: on What are they doing? I mean, if you're not
Speaker 1: interested in what they're doing? You know some In the beginning,
Speaker 1: of course, I was highly just like everybody else is here,
Speaker 1: I want to be on one. So I picked a
Speaker 1: road striping company. You know, they they picked me. I
Speaker 1: didn't pick them. They picked me. I had been by
Speaker 1: the way. It was. It was fun. I ended up
Speaker 1: loving the guys. But the product, I mean it was
Speaker 1: it was glass beads for road striping. And I learned
Speaker 1: a lot from the company. But when they you know,
Speaker 1: we would go on plant tours and oh what what
Speaker 1: am I doing? So I'm making fun of it, but
Speaker 1: be careful, be aware that this sounds great, but it
Speaker 1: takes a lot of time and a lot of energy,
Speaker 1: and it takes a lot of your emotional time. And
Speaker 1: you you know, you've got to read stuff beforehand. You
Speaker 1: have to have some reason besides just saying I'm on one,
Speaker 1: that you want to be involved. The last thing I'll
Speaker 1: say on this thing. If you can get on a
Speaker 1: private company, go board a pre I p O board.
Speaker 1: I would do it every single day before I go
Speaker 1: on a public company board. Every day you get paid
Speaker 1: more money, you get more involved in the company. The
Speaker 1: chances of getting rich are better. In a public company. Literally,
Speaker 1: your compensation is contained and reported to everyone. Every single year.
Speaker 1: You can't make more than x l Y money dollars.
Speaker 1: That's if you have one meeting or five meetings. Literally,
Speaker 1: the same amount of money goes whether you have one
Speaker 1: or five hundred. You never have one, right you have
Speaker 1: six or seven. But somebody talked about this. If you're
Speaker 1: in trouble, I want to board a X on Mobile.
Speaker 1: X On Mobile just had a proxy fight. X on
Speaker 1: Mobile has ten meetings a year normally proxy fight year.
Speaker 1: How about and you just do you have to do
Speaker 1: them now? They make it a little bit easy for you.
Speaker 1: They've tried to find a time that you can do it.
Speaker 1: But it's not you know, it's not. It's not always
Speaker 1: cracked up to be. I would, I would really be
Speaker 1: careful about running after this one last thing. I keep
Speaker 1: saying the last thing. There is no way you can
Speaker 1: be on four or five boards. Literally, proxy firms like
Speaker 1: last Lewis, etcetera won't vote for you. You will literally
Speaker 1: it's not allowed. You have to be on a certain
Speaker 1: number for your CEO. I was on three when I
Speaker 1: was the CEO. Fortunately, two of them were easy, you know.
Speaker 1: One of them was American Express, one of the best
Speaker 1: round companies out there. Ken also amazing CEO. The board
Speaker 1: was phenomenal, so you could actually do that, and you
Speaker 1: can do another one that's not so. American Express was time,
Speaker 1: but easy time, if you know what I mean. It
Speaker 1: was not a crisis. Another company that was on was
Speaker 1: a crisis and I took a lot of time. And
Speaker 1: then the third was in the middle. So it's not
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that you do a lot of
Speaker 1: and it's not you don't get rich and famous, little don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to push back on that, on that last point. Um,
Speaker 1: so you're on the board or have been on the
Speaker 1: board of Uber. I'm still on the boarder was still
Speaker 1: on the bo board of Uber. So they've gone through
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Um, what's that been, like? How
Speaker 1: does that work? And how I'm consuming is it? Well?
Speaker 1: I was on the board of I got on the
Speaker 1: board of Uber as an out come of the mess, Right,
Speaker 1: So I wasn't I didn't. I wasn't clean up. You
Speaker 1: weren't in them. I wasn't clean up. Yeah, I wasn't
Speaker 1: clean up. I was at the very I was the
Speaker 1: last board member, myself and another guy named John than
Speaker 1: who were put on by Travis. And if remember when
Speaker 1: this whole thing blew up, Travis had three board seats
Speaker 1: as part of his last fight. As part of his
Speaker 1: last fight, he was one and he picked two others
Speaker 1: myself and John were And then soon after that, did
Speaker 1: you know, Travis, he just picked you out of the Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of stories behind how you know, how you get picked
Speaker 1: for this crap. But I'm trying to get the dirt
Speaker 1: for y'all. I hope you appreciate this. Okay, you know
Speaker 1: I'm trying. I'm trying, Morrigan. I'm at a point in
Speaker 1: my life. This may sound like both. I'm on the
Speaker 1: point in my life that I asked. I'm getting I
Speaker 1: get asked every day to bet on the board or something. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's now, But at that the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you say, well, then it's all because the money is
Speaker 1: all pretty much locked. If you're public, it's pretty much
Speaker 1: there's a very narrow band. So it's all you're picking
Speaker 1: for then is the team of people and the content
Speaker 1: of the company. It's not about the money. Unless if
Speaker 1: private is better, like I keep saying, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a little bit easier. There's definitely more upside um. You
Speaker 1: learn a lot more because it's not as structured, so
Speaker 1: you have you have to set it up yourself. You know.
Speaker 1: Part of the part of going part of being private
Speaker 1: to go public is this whole idea of structuring the government.
Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, I'm traveling. Uber turns out to be
Speaker 1: a really, really, really great company. Okay, your experience is great.
Speaker 1: That's what you're saying is there's everything about it now
Speaker 1: is so they were in a lot of trouble, right
Speaker 1: and they were, and it wasn't because of profitability. You know.
Speaker 1: The story was this crazy place. Yeah, crazy culture, crazy leadership.
Speaker 1: Actually probably maybe good at individual people. I never got
Speaker 1: to know them, but together they were definitely not a
Speaker 1: group of people that you want to hang out with
Speaker 1: a whole lot. And we when we went in, the
Speaker 1: board was being restructured for this disaster, and so the
Speaker 1: company was aware. Travis was even aware who Travis, who
Speaker 1: are like and respect and think he's smart. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I don't think he could run a public company. That's
Speaker 1: not his thing, right, he should have never gotten there.
Speaker 1: But um, I mean starting it is good. I mean
Speaker 1: you just go there's a point where you go a
Speaker 1: little bit too far and it's not your specialty and
Speaker 1: you shouldn't really be engaged in it, and it's the
Speaker 1: Peter principle. But anyway, when you get on. When we
Speaker 1: got on, we realized quickly that this company was you know,
Speaker 1: a small, small I p O company with a market
Speaker 1: valuation of sixty billion dollars, it's not it's like a
Speaker 1: this is not a game anymore, right, you had it,
Speaker 1: So you have to actually adults in the room. And
Speaker 1: so they got old adults in the room, myself and
Speaker 1: John and some other people who knew about things. But
Speaker 1: the thing that was interesting was that they were also
Speaker 1: very aware that they were on the edge in every
Speaker 1: country of being just like debarred that they were hated. Right,
Speaker 1: they were used. They were part of it, but they
Speaker 1: knew that if they didn't do something, it would be
Speaker 1: a problem. So fortunately they we were bought on the
Speaker 1: board the last two, but the whole board realized and
Speaker 1: the management team we got to do something big, and
Speaker 1: so we brought in the new CEO, Dara, who used
Speaker 1: to run Expedia. He's amazing, he's really really good. This
Speaker 1: is you know, he's the guy who I the firm,
Speaker 1: who I always look into when we went through the
Speaker 1: Charles the George Floyd thing. And they're voting the first company,
Speaker 1: the first company that signed up for everything without reading
Speaker 1: the damn papers that I'm in and this and this
Speaker 1: is the influence you have by being on that board
Speaker 1: and talking to the CEO and making sure that they
Speaker 1: can be responsive and what the kind of the kind
Speaker 1: of multiplier effect that has when something like George Floyd happens.
Speaker 1: So that's the influence and impact you get to have
Speaker 1: by being on that that Uber is good. Uber is
Speaker 1: a cool company. Exit Mombile is a little bit more challenging.
Speaker 1: It's very structured, very legal, it's very risky. You know.
Speaker 1: It's just it has a big operation in Russia. So
Speaker 1: now we're sitting here going, okay, now what you know
Speaker 1: not what are you're doing? You can't go visit it.
Speaker 1: You can't you know, you have to get out. You
Speaker 1: can't just leave because so you know it, it becomes
Speaker 1: very complicated. So you gotta be aware that when the
Speaker 1: good comes to bad, when the bad comes, you gotta
Speaker 1: do the work. Do you select certain or do you
Speaker 1: have certain committees that you only serve on or always, always, always,
Speaker 1: always every board that I'm on on on the Order
Speaker 1: committee number one. Yeah, that that's where I started with
Speaker 1: you to me, and I think it's such a good
Speaker 1: learning experience, even for a company that's about to go public,
Speaker 1: knowing how you have to get everything in order, from
Speaker 1: cybersecurity to your tax situation, all that has to be
Speaker 1: clean before you go public knowing how to do all
Speaker 1: that stuff. From the audit perspective, if is every company
Speaker 1: needs that, is that why, well, well I'm a I'm
Speaker 1: with a sitting CEO, so I'm a certified financial expert,
Speaker 1: so I can do it. The problem with being on
Speaker 1: the Order committee is that it's real work. This is
Speaker 1: not I mean, I mean really like you have to
Speaker 1: sign your name to stuff that I've read this, It's
Speaker 1: not like. It's not like nominations and governance where you
Speaker 1: can get which is now how we gonna let's not
Speaker 1: slam Now I'm good. I take that very seriously. By
Speaker 1: the way, Terry, now I'm gonna. But I was just
Speaker 1: saying how important it is. Not not so four committees
Speaker 1: what it is required. Nobody wants to do it. Nobody
Speaker 1: wants to do it. It's a lot. It's so if
Speaker 1: there are seven board meetings in the year, they're ten
Speaker 1: Order Committee meetings, right, So it's just a lot more work.
Speaker 1: It's it is if you're not into it, kind of boring.
Speaker 1: And if you're not good at it and don't just
Speaker 1: don't do it. I mean, there's no reason to do it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of other things you can be doing,
Speaker 1: and I just happen to like it and and be
Speaker 1: good at it. That's to reason. Nomanov is important, important,
Speaker 1: and compensation is important. So the two rocking committees are
Speaker 1: those two, right, Nominov which is a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: glory and comp which everybody seems to like you because
Speaker 1: you control that what salary the CEO and other people
Speaker 1: and some people like that. But I think any committee,
Speaker 1: I think you know, any committee is fine. It's something
Speaker 1: that you can be useful on, that you can contribute to. Okay,
Speaker 1: now I tried to get you to answer this, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try again. Which is that, um, having been
Speaker 1: the CEO, I know that you've had favorite directors, or
Speaker 1: at least favorite directors, and I want to know more
Speaker 1: about that so that when they get on the boards
Speaker 1: they know how to really Like I've been told by
Speaker 1: the CEO, I'm his favorite director. Right now, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what I did, but I think
Speaker 1: it helps that I've been a CEO and I know
Speaker 1: how to not micromanage, you know, give him alerts about
Speaker 1: whatever it is. But what from your perspective, what makes
Speaker 1: for a great director? Knowing what their jobbers. One of
Speaker 1: the one of the big challenges always every board I've
Speaker 1: ever been on, small, big, private, public, there's at least
Speaker 1: one director who actually wants to run the company and
Speaker 1: who who actually act questions like you know, what was
Speaker 1: the turnover of the popcorn, and it's like who that's
Speaker 1: not That's something that's interesting that you should probably talk
Speaker 1: to the CEO about over lunch, but it's not a
Speaker 1: director level of question, and so knowing the most challenging
Speaker 1: I've been CEO of two public companies. The most challenging
Speaker 1: thing is a bad director. It is unbelievably bad. Um.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult for the CEO. It's usually very time
Speaker 1: consuming for the rest of the board because they're generally
Speaker 1: out of sync and a lot of you know, we
Speaker 1: get down a lot of rabbit holes, and it's and
Speaker 1: it's hard to get rid of a director. Once you
Speaker 1: get them on. It's reputationally very challenging to just kind
Speaker 1: of throw them off or you can't. You can't just
Speaker 1: throw them off, and it's just very it's a very
Speaker 1: challenging thing. So the first thing is to make sure
Speaker 1: that you know what your what your job is, and
Speaker 1: it's generally not to run the place. And if it is,
Speaker 1: if you are trying to run the place, to see,
Speaker 1: you should probably be changed. I mean, you've got the
Speaker 1: wrong boss. So that's what that person's job is. The
Speaker 1: other thing is it did someone just asshole personalities that
Speaker 1: you just don't want to be part of. And everybody
Speaker 1: has a different swing lane that they're into, So let's
Speaker 1: make sure that's why it's really important to the the group
Speaker 1: that is there already, Just make sure that you like
Speaker 1: the group that's there. Okay, that's very helpful. Now for
Speaker 1: people who are still coming up in their careers and
Speaker 1: they want to, um get experience to know how to
Speaker 1: interface with directors and and that sort of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: are there things that they should do to know the
Speaker 1: boards of director, like the directors on their company or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Okay, Okay, to be away from this
Speaker 1: is okay, it's a bad thing. Stay away from this.
Speaker 1: You you know, the board of your company when you
Speaker 1: should know them, right and when you're think in the
Speaker 1: c suite or or have some kind of a role
Speaker 1: that requires that you interface with them on a regular
Speaker 1: basis or any basis, that's fine. Otherwise I assure you
Speaker 1: you will not become a member of the c suite.
Speaker 1: If you spend your time trying to get to know
Speaker 1: your directors, you should try to spend your time getting
Speaker 1: to know your job, right because it's it is really, really,
Speaker 1: really risky. This is not a game of politics at
Speaker 1: this level, right, they are governed into your operations. When
Speaker 1: you get in the governance, then there's a lot of politics.
Speaker 1: But you can't play politics when you're the surf and
Speaker 1: they're the king, right, So it's not the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that that you do. You should just stay this
Speaker 1: is becoming right, So we spend we're gonna spend twenty
Speaker 1: five minutes talking about boards of directors where the vast
Speaker 1: majority of people in this room will never serve on one. Right.
Speaker 1: Before you do that, you got to get to the
Speaker 1: point where people say, yeah, we want that person to
Speaker 1: serve on one. And the way that you get there
Speaker 1: is that you have to actually do work that somebody
Speaker 1: says that's reasonable. That's a person who's being the CFO
Speaker 1: of some company is a really good idea. It's a
Speaker 1: good it's a good checkpoint so you can get through.
Speaker 1: Being the CEO obviously is a really good idea. If
Speaker 1: you have some really specific tech skill. If you're a
Speaker 1: master at cybersecurity, if you're good at digital marketing, or
Speaker 1: are one of these things, then you can be selected.
Speaker 1: But if you're just an employee of a company, just
Speaker 1: it's not a bit justice, not a demeaning just it's
Speaker 1: just like just um, if you're that, you know, spending
Speaker 1: your time to try to maneuver your way into the boardroom,
Speaker 1: it's really not the most useful. It's not the most
Speaker 1: useful thing. I if I could say over and over again, Guys,
Speaker 1: when it comes, it will come. Look for it. Don't
Speaker 1: spend your time not looking, you know, look for it occasionally.
Speaker 1: When it comes, it will come, and you'll be ready.
Speaker 1: If you get there before you're ready, it's a waste
Speaker 1: of goddamn time. It's not that much money, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's yeah, And it's not that much
Speaker 1: fame and fortune unless you get unless you get on
Speaker 1: the board of um, Apple, Amazon, let's talk to there's
Speaker 1: probably fifteen companies that you if you can get on
Speaker 1: the board of Airbnb before it goes, you know, those
Speaker 1: kinds of companies. Yeah, that's great. Otherwise it's just otherwise
Speaker 1: you're an unsung hero. It's for your gratification. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: just work. Okay, great, excellent, got it um? Okay, I
Speaker 1: think yes, she is so real and that's why we
Speaker 1: love law Burns. By the way, we we we have
Speaker 1: to You know, most of us are first generation. You
Speaker 1: were telling me about your background. We're all brand new
Speaker 1: to this stuff. And if we don't share the information
Speaker 1: with each other about what it's like in these different positions,
Speaker 1: I don't know who's gonna tell us because they don't
Speaker 1: really want us to be part of the whole scene.
Speaker 1: Necessarily very good. The point they do not want us
Speaker 1: to be part of this scene. It is structured. This
Speaker 1: scene is structured. So I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: talking about is in such a way that they can
Speaker 1: decide when they want you right there. It's just it's
Speaker 1: and that's all BS right, because there's we We launched
Speaker 1: this thing called the Board Diversity Action Alliance. Right. This
Speaker 1: was after George Floyd, myself, Gabby Salzburger, Darren Walker from
Speaker 1: the Ford Foundation, a company them engaged with called to
Speaker 1: Neo and the e l C. Why George Floyd gets
Speaker 1: murdered by the police. Uh, that day I had flown
Speaker 1: to London. I got a call from a very very
Speaker 1: good friend who happens to be the CEO of a
Speaker 1: sporting good company from in Europe. You can kind of
Speaker 1: deduced down to what company it is. And okay, he's
Speaker 1: a great guy from Austria. I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: just want to talk to you about this what happened.
Speaker 1: And I think I got this right. But and he
Speaker 1: really great conversation, really really good man. And I said
Speaker 1: to him, but you know, great, didn't call me anytime
Speaker 1: if you need any more. I accept him at the end,
Speaker 1: Why why are you talking to me about this? Why
Speaker 1: didn't you call stupid me? Why didn't you just talk
Speaker 1: to one of your directors or And he said, well,
Speaker 1: we don't have any director black directors. It's interesting, he said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can get I can maybe figure it out. I said,
Speaker 1: but how about the management team. None, who's his biggest
Speaker 1: his biggest customers. They look like us. They're playing basketball,
Speaker 1: they're doing whatever the hell you do, football and all
Speaker 1: of this stuff. They don't do football but soccer, you know,
Speaker 1: global SoC And I said to him, you mean to
Speaker 1: tell me that you run this whole company and you
Speaker 1: see nobody who looks like the clients that you served.
Speaker 1: Next call some other company. I talked to Darren, he
Speaker 1: had gotten calls. Gabby was the CEO. Was the chair
Speaker 1: of Whole Foods, if you know, right when it was
Speaker 1: sold to Amazon. And we got together and we were like,
Speaker 1: this is really strange that all these people who are
Speaker 1: calling us great people at least called right and are curious.
Speaker 1: They reason why they called us is because we're the
Speaker 1: closest thing to a black person they see anytime. Right.
Speaker 1: So we decided that we were gonna start this thing
Speaker 1: called the b d A, the Board Diversity Action Alliance.
Speaker 1: And basically what it is simple simple, Every company in
Speaker 1: the fortune fire under now we've done it to the
Speaker 1: Russell three thousand has to have at least one black director.
Speaker 1: I don't care, it doesn't matter what you do right now.
Speaker 1: We got into a lot of trouble on this because
Speaker 1: we didn't say black or brown, so the Hispanics thought
Speaker 1: we were until we did change it. So now I
Speaker 1: will say black or brown director. And if you have one,
Speaker 1: you should get a second. Right. If you have a second,
Speaker 1: maybe you should get a third. Right Exactly, because there's
Speaker 1: this there's this belief and and this is what came out.
Speaker 1: You should look at some of the newsreels that when
Speaker 1: we launched this thing. It's all over the newspapers. We
Speaker 1: had a question that came from Andrew ros Saukin, who's
Speaker 1: a really cool guy reporter, you know, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: won't some of these people believe that. The question was like,
Speaker 1: the current directors are going to feel kind of bad
Speaker 1: because you're taking their seats. I said, it's interesting their seats.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting phraseology. It belongs. And I said to
Speaker 1: him that means that they own these things, right, and
Speaker 1: then we are now taking something that they own. And
Speaker 1: the theory of the case that we even have is
Speaker 1: that there is that they own this space and now
Speaker 1: so we just have to flip it around and we
Speaker 1: have to say, though, why aren't there eight black directors? Right?
Speaker 1: And and that's what I've always said is that your
Speaker 1: board of directors should reflect your customer base. And so if, yeah,
Speaker 1: if your customers are black, maybe you ought to have
Speaker 1: black directors. I mean, that's what makes sense, right, So
Speaker 1: it's it's I just think that obviously all I did
Speaker 1: would just present all we did was just present a problem. Right.
Speaker 1: So they believe it or not, they still have the seats.
Speaker 1: We are still outside trying to get the seats. And okay,
Speaker 1: we'll keep playing that game, right, make sure you get
Speaker 1: the right ones and you have fun and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Play that game. When you get inside. You absolutely have
Speaker 1: to be an advocate or else there's no you know,
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, I've come a little bit
Speaker 1: around this. You don't have to be an advocate advocate.
Speaker 1: But then don't call yourself a black director, right, just
Speaker 1: call yourself a director, just a regular director, rector you're
Speaker 1: a director. And because not not everyone has to do
Speaker 1: everything all the time, right, So you can say I
Speaker 1: don't want to do that right now, you got it,
Speaker 1: I got it. I don't want to do that in
Speaker 1: this company. Got it. But you can't kind of get
Speaker 1: the the accolades and the distinction and then not actually
Speaker 1: contribute to the solution. And that is something that I've
Speaker 1: kind of had. I've seen there's some women black people
Speaker 1: who stack up a lot of boards and they get
Speaker 1: a lot of credit for that. They haven't necessarily brought
Speaker 1: any other people at the table. I don't begrudge them.
Speaker 1: I'm happy for them, but it's a different thing if
Speaker 1: you're doing what Merline is doing, where you're literally working
Speaker 1: to get more black people at to those tables. It's
Speaker 1: always a sensitive thing, right, So you go to a
Speaker 1: company to to serve the company, right, to serve the
Speaker 1: share you're the representative of the shareholders of the company.
Speaker 1: So you're not the representative of black people, but well,
Speaker 1: or women or but there's a big butt. You are
Speaker 1: a black person and a woman, right, so you you
Speaker 1: you bring to that role of representing the shareholder is
Speaker 1: a point of view that is different from the point
Speaker 1: of view presumably, and I from experience, it's true of
Speaker 1: a white man, or of a man if you're a
Speaker 1: woman so, or of a of a gay or lesbian
Speaker 1: person if you're straight. Right, So all these things walk
Speaker 1: into the room. It's really important to understand that if
Speaker 1: you shed them when you walk into the room, that
Speaker 1: could have just gotten a regular white guy to do it.
Speaker 1: I mean it didn't really need that. I have a
Speaker 1: lot of them are ready. So so yeah, whatsion can't
Speaker 1: be your job only that's not the thing that you
Speaker 1: came on to do. Now you have fiducial responsibilities and
Speaker 1: you have to meet those first and foremost where you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be at the table. UM okay, I know we
Speaker 1: have some burning questions. I've been hogging all the questions. UM,
Speaker 1: I have for about three or four questions. Please make
Speaker 1: them scinct. Five questions, five questions. We're going right here.
Speaker 1: I think there are five hands up, so it's perfect. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, don't drop the chair now, All right there,
Speaker 1: good afternoon. I'm bringing Cole from Nashville, Tennessee, CEO of
Speaker 1: Career Thrivers. We hope corporations retain diverse talent. So two
Speaker 1: quick questions. One will you sign my book for a
Speaker 1: good friend of mine? Uh? And my second question absolutely,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's phenomenal by the way. UM, and I
Speaker 1: want to say thank you for UM. I'm here because
Speaker 1: I'm just as good as you. In the Harvard Business Review,
Speaker 1: the article interview the you did, and in that interview
Speaker 1: you talked about there was a question about you know,
Speaker 1: obviously there's this resurgence, will call it that a d E.
Speaker 1: And I and what is the solution for seeing more
Speaker 1: black faces inside of corporate corporations? And you your answer
Speaker 1: was numbers, numbers, numbers, and why I would agree with
Speaker 1: you? You You all hit on this, UM. I think it's
Speaker 1: a bit of a generational um thing where perhaps UM,
Speaker 1: more millennial black professionals and black women specifically kind of
Speaker 1: run up against the you know, stay in your place, UM,
Speaker 1: make sure you, you know, serve your time before you
Speaker 1: can get to executive level levels of leadership from older,
Speaker 1: more seasoned black women. So what would you say, UM,
Speaker 1: to perhaps mid career women that are in the room
Speaker 1: today who are being met by resistance from women who
Speaker 1: look like them inside of corporations. I love that we're
Speaker 1: keeping the reel in the room. Thank you. I I
Speaker 1: halfway through that question, I was agreeing. I was agreeing
Speaker 1: or disagreeing with you, but agreeing with the with the
Speaker 1: protagonist of you know, do your things serve your time,
Speaker 1: because there is a lot to be said about that,
Speaker 1: and talked about this in the book. It is amazing
Speaker 1: to me the number of people who literally I meet
Speaker 1: with them all the time, and I've been meeting and
Speaker 1: I say what do you want to do? And they
Speaker 1: say I want to be a vice president? And I say,
Speaker 1: of what it doesn't matter? They say, it doesn't matter anything,
Speaker 1: and that thinking is what stay in your place, do
Speaker 1: some things. It's trying to counteract right is trying to
Speaker 1: counteract this. It doesn't matter what the hell. I just
Speaker 1: want to get there. It doesn't matter whether I know
Speaker 1: how the place runs. It doesn't. So, but I do
Speaker 1: believe that there is always that there has always been.
Speaker 1: And some of the staunches, um, what's the next it
Speaker 1: an advocate? Whatever the hey, who are uh? That's that
Speaker 1: looks exactly like you? And then it's and I've I
Speaker 1: run into it a lot more from women to women,
Speaker 1: because it's not When I was coming up there were
Speaker 1: not a lot of black women, but women to women
Speaker 1: it was a big deal. And you know, all you
Speaker 1: do is you push, you keep pushing. It's not I
Speaker 1: mean a lot has to do with the situation that
Speaker 1: you're in the company, that you're in, how powerful the
Speaker 1: person is. One of the things my husband used to
Speaker 1: tell me all the time. He would say to me, Ursula,
Speaker 1: this is not slavery. If you if it ain't working
Speaker 1: for you, go find another place. Right, So these are
Speaker 1: all these things have to be options for you. Generally,
Speaker 1: companies don't hire you and executives don't have you in
Speaker 1: roles if you're subordinate to them. For you to do
Speaker 1: a bad job. They actually need you to be successful.
Speaker 1: So you have to figure out a way to maneuver
Speaker 1: around blockers and haters. Sometimes. My approach, which is not
Speaker 1: everybody's approach, and I would not suggest it for everyone,
Speaker 1: is I am extremely direct. I have been, and it's worked.
Speaker 1: It's worked, but it doesn't work for everyone. And if
Speaker 1: you're not, if that's not how you roll, it's it's
Speaker 1: a damn show, won't work for you, right, So you
Speaker 1: have to find the way that you do it. You
Speaker 1: know who your advocates are. There are lots of different
Speaker 1: ways around, but make sure that you're aware that you
Speaker 1: have the ultimate option to find another job and then
Speaker 1: you don't have to stay anywhere. Thank you. And and
Speaker 1: what I always tell my daughter is there are no
Speaker 1: shortcuts for being for mastering your skill, your trades, and
Speaker 1: if it's finy, if it's if it's writing, whatever, there
Speaker 1: are no shortcuts. And and I'm sorry for that information,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's the fact. Um. Okay, where's the
Speaker 1: next question? Have it over here? While questions are coming,
Speaker 1: Bring me your book and a pen. What's your name?
Speaker 1: Anybody else has a book? Bring me a book on
Speaker 1: your pen? Because I'll sign them when I'm answering questions.
Speaker 1: See how efficient she is? She efficient organized, This is
Speaker 1: how a leader works. I was just about to say
Speaker 1: direct and deficient. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. My name is Tono Boz. I am a
Speaker 1: chief of staff at Harlem Capital Diversity Focus venture capital firm.
Speaker 1: I wanted I wanted to ask, because you've had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to not just be an independent board member, but
Speaker 1: also a CEO and a chairwoman. I want to ask
Speaker 1: for the CEOs in the room, or even the future CEOs,
Speaker 1: what do you think about when putting together your board?
Speaker 1: Because when it comes to diverse founders and CEOs, often
Speaker 1: they may get to a point where they're putting together
Speaker 1: a board and they've never been on a board. So
Speaker 1: I really want to think about what can CEOs do
Speaker 1: to build a board that supports them and helps elevate them. Question,
Speaker 1: it's a great question, um My, very really do I
Speaker 1: I've never had the ability to build a board, you know.
Speaker 1: I've always had the situation where I come into a
Speaker 1: company or come into a board that already exists. So
Speaker 1: and I'm the latest add to a pretty historical, long
Speaker 1: running set of relationships. But I as a CEO when
Speaker 1: I and by the way, as a CEO the same.
Speaker 1: So if I'm the CEO, I generally get elevated into
Speaker 1: a role in The people sitting around the table picked me, right,
Speaker 1: So I don't. I didn't. I didn't pick them. It's
Speaker 1: just the way it happens to be. First, is the
Speaker 1: technical responsibility of a of a board, of a director
Speaker 1: is important to understand. It's important to know what fiducier
Speaker 1: you know, what's the what are the duties of care,
Speaker 1: what are the duties of loyalty. It's important to know
Speaker 1: kind of really what you do. It's important to know
Speaker 1: the structure of committees and what skills are needed. It's
Speaker 1: important to actually know the facts and data of the
Speaker 1: job and not you know because all the rest of
Speaker 1: it is glory. But you don't get there unless you
Speaker 1: know the fact dati of the of the job. I
Speaker 1: want board members who are um pushers right. One of
Speaker 1: the things about boards, and one of the things about
Speaker 1: CEOs is they need permission to take risks. The toughest
Speaker 1: thing about running a company is that you have choices
Speaker 1: to make and all not all the choices are equal.
Speaker 1: And and you have to figure out a way one
Speaker 1: of the you know every day, which which you know
Speaker 1: the five things, Which is the best to do. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they're small choices, but in your career you'll probably run
Speaker 1: over run into four or five pretty important ones. The
Speaker 1: combination buying this company a CS was I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like, what the hell? What, how did this happen?
Speaker 1: Where did this come from? How would you get permission
Speaker 1: to take that kind of risk? So having a board
Speaker 1: that can help you think through these kinds of expansive
Speaker 1: moves are important. So I look at people who feel
Speaker 1: apps that I have people if I people who can
Speaker 1: work with the rest of the team. Like I said, uh, bed,
Speaker 1: director takes energy that's unbelievable and time to manage. And
Speaker 1: it's your responsibility if you're the chair I was chairing CEO,
Speaker 1: And it's a whole bunch of crap about being both.
Speaker 1: But if you happen to be both, then you a
Speaker 1: lot of time in managing that. But if this is
Speaker 1: the whole thing about there is a job to be done,
Speaker 1: it's not a it's kind of like if you're the CFO,
Speaker 1: there's a job to be done. If your board directors
Speaker 1: a job to be done, learning that job, the technicals
Speaker 1: of that job, and doing that well with the team,
Speaker 1: isn't it is the most important things. And I'll just
Speaker 1: chime into that. I think a lot of new CEOs
Speaker 1: and founders have no idea about how much power and
Speaker 1: how important the board of directors is. In fact, I'm
Speaker 1: writing a piece that I'm about to post on Monday
Speaker 1: in honor of this session for that very reason. And
Speaker 1: we do a similar stage black Ops Ventures in Harlem,
Speaker 1: Capital of Investing, and so it's usually the first price ound.
Speaker 1: And at that stage you need directors who are going
Speaker 1: to get you your first wall to wall enterprise customers,
Speaker 1: or who can help you build the strategy, have the
Speaker 1: relationships and networks to help you grow your company into
Speaker 1: a billion dollar company. So, um, who you have at
Speaker 1: that table? And also are they thinking about the best
Speaker 1: interests of the company and the people who got the
Speaker 1: company off the ground, or they thinking about the best
Speaker 1: interests of their portfolio? First, UM, I went through a
Speaker 1: tough experience where my board forced me to sell to
Speaker 1: one of UM my board members. UM I wish I
Speaker 1: was still running the company today. So you you really,
Speaker 1: founders so often don't understand how important the directors are.
Speaker 1: So I think that's a great question, and it's really
Speaker 1: funny because I think this is I love this topic
Speaker 1: right because what happens the version at the end, what
Speaker 1: happens with quote unquote these entrepreneurs. Everybody, everybody I run
Speaker 1: too into is an entrepreneur. Everybody today, What do you
Speaker 1: do an entrepreneur? Okay, everybody's an entrepreneur, and everybody wants
Speaker 1: to start their own company, which is which is what
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, I guess does, And they all want them
Speaker 1: to be a billion dollar company, and they all want
Speaker 1: money to fund it. This is where I remember saying
Speaker 1: this to Travis School and I said, I still have
Speaker 1: a lot of time for Travis. I think he's a
Speaker 1: great guy. I said, you lost control when you took
Speaker 1: other people's money. Because make sure you understand it's not
Speaker 1: your money. It's not your company anymore. So if you
Speaker 1: want to treat it like it's your little company, don't
Speaker 1: ask other people for investments in it. They can say
Speaker 1: to you, I you own ten percent of it, now
Speaker 1: we own ninety. It's time to sell, right exactly. But
Speaker 1: when you when you met cross that line, it's so
Speaker 1: funny how many people say this to me, Well, my
Speaker 1: board wants from like, it's yeah, because you work for
Speaker 1: them now, right, because what we're trying to say here
Speaker 1: took their money. You can't actually take the money and
Speaker 1: actually act like they are the owners. So it's a
Speaker 1: by the way, then go off and start another company, right,
Speaker 1: that's what you do, right, and then and then and
Speaker 1: then and then and then and then. So anyway, thank you.
Speaker 1: Her last question right here, she has a flight to catch.
Speaker 1: She has a flight to catch them. Short, So fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, a girl is walking down the street and
Speaker 1: says ursula, and you turn around and looked at me
Speaker 1: as if who is this woman? So fast forward fifteen
Speaker 1: years later. It's amazing to see you again. I am
Speaker 1: a tech founder and CEO. M Tech is a company.
Speaker 1: We are modernizing central banks and emerging markets and in
Speaker 1: the US. My question to you, how do I know
Speaker 1: going public is for me? Genuinely, you are forced. It's
Speaker 1: it's not a choice that you have that you can make. Generally,
Speaker 1: you are. You get there because you can no longer
Speaker 1: garner the credibility you need. So if you have a
Speaker 1: lot of enterprise customers, people are not gonna sign big
Speaker 1: contracts with you know, ding Dong company as good as
Speaker 1: you you seem you are, or you need money so
Speaker 1: you need or access to significant sums of money. So
Speaker 1: very really do you have the luxury of you You
Speaker 1: may have luxury of timing, but you generally don't have
Speaker 1: the luxury for good reasons of like just saying I
Speaker 1: can keep going, I can keep going for a long time,
Speaker 1: but I tell you, for as long as you can
Speaker 1: stay private, I would stay private for as long as
Speaker 1: I could stay private. There's a point where it doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense anymore, right where it's just trapped value. Um.
Speaker 1: You can't get the talent that you need because they
Speaker 1: they won't come unless they have some way to get
Speaker 1: some kind of equity. That's reasonable. But generally you you
Speaker 1: put on what what happens is you take you become
Speaker 1: an adult, a regulated adult adult, and that's you just
Speaker 1: have to prepare for it. And if I think it's
Speaker 1: generally good for companies when you have to go through
Speaker 1: the hurdles of meeting Sarbanes Oxley reporting requirements, having some
Speaker 1: kind of a comp committee that has some kind of
Speaker 1: instructions that you have to do earnest. I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty good. But there's a point you'll know when it's
Speaker 1: it's just not for you. But there's a point where
Speaker 1: it's you wait too long, you can't, you can't do it.
Speaker 1: There are very few, very large, not family owned, There
Speaker 1: are very very few, very large, enterprise level private companies.
Speaker 1: You just need talent, you need money, you need access,
Speaker 1: you need the credibility of a set of ordered financials
Speaker 1: and running through a whole bunch of loops. Emotionally, I
Speaker 1: would wait as long as possible because it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of work. Black Tech Green Money is the
Speaker 1: production of Black of the Afro Tech on the Black
Speaker 1: Effect podcast Network and iHeart Media, and it's produced by
Speaker 1: Morgan Dubonne and me Well Lucas, with addition to production
Speaker 1: support by Love Beach and Marissa Lewis. Especially thank you
Speaker 1: to Michael Davis, Jermaine hall of And that's a serranto.
Speaker 1: Learn more about my guests and other techis rother That's
Speaker 1: innovative at afro tech dot com. In the video first
Speaker 1: of other episode, we'll talk the Black Tech Green Money
Speaker 1: on YouTube, So tap in enjoy your Black Tech Green Money.
Speaker 1: He was five Star Radio on iTunes, Go get your money.
Speaker 1: He's in love.