In a Valdosta Valley interview about board diversity, New York Stock Exchange Betty Liu, NYSE Executive Vice Chairman and chief experience officer at Intercontinental Exchange offered her experience about diversifying boards (for and non-profit). Her major point to me: "diversifying a board is not a pipeline issue, it's a network issue." Basically, the folks sitting on a board know tend to know folks who look like them - that's their circle. Broaden the circle, you broaden the pool. An additional point from Ms. Liu: understand what are the needed skills, perspective and experience not currently on the board. At the same time I think I would offer that this is not an either or but both when speaking of pipeline and network. Re the pipeline, a nonprofit board has a variety of means to identify prospective board members once their networking is expanded. Advisory Committees, recruiting for standing committees and task forces, and recruiting volunteers and staff connections can be sources for the pipeline.
Note, Ms. Liu's advice is well stated but she is certainly not the only individual speaking this message. But of course, hearing a message doesn't just happen once. From the AP via the Valdosta Daily Times, here's excerpts from her interview.
Q: What are the biggest challenges when it comes to achieving board diversity?
A: The biggest obstacle is the network. Some of the CEOs I talked to said, "if I'm having a hard time finding a candidate, it's not so much that there aren't candidates out there, it's that my network's not big enough." When I heard things like that, I felt, "let's expand that network." Board diversity is not a pipeline issue, it's a network issue.
Q: What are your thoughts on best practices for recruiting diverse candidates?
A: CEOs and boards are expanding their definition of what makes a good board member. Because if they look at just title, a former CEO or a CEO, then that pool is naturally very narrow. There are many women and minorities who are very capable that might not have that title. Go beyond title. What's the skillset, what's the type of person that you need on that board?
Q: Did the candidates at the June session have prior board experience?
A: Some of them did, but most of them didn't. Because what tends to happen is that the same people get invited on boards, so what we need to do is expand that network to people who have never been on a board. We had people who were entrepreneurs, who were CEOs themselves, we had people who were running multibillion-dollar businesses within large corporations, and then we had people who were in the nonprofit space.
Q: What is your advice to first-time candidates seeking to get on a board?
A: First, raise your hand, and be intentional about telling people that you are interested in a board position. The second thing is the skills that got you to where you are sometimes may not be the skills that make you a good board member. Some board members, when they come on, they think they are managing the company, they think they are managing the CEO. That's not really your role. So just learn from other board members. Try to find other board members and make them mentors.