 Well, I'm going to welcome out our three panelists. I'm going to have them introduce themselves to you directly. But before we get started, this is a happy crowd? All right, all right, good. Are we all ready for some really exciting, incredible advice from these three ladies? And it's going to be very interactive, right? Yes. All right, just wanted to make sure we got that right. OK, cool. Awesome. So I can never do justice to these three ladies myself, so I'm going to ask each of them to introduce themselves and tell you which board that they sit on today. We'll start with that and go from there. Go ahead. First of all, wow, it's so great to see so many people I really like. This is absolutely spectacular. Wow, thanks so much for inviting me. This is wonderful. This is like a family reunion. I love this. Hi, my name is Sarah Hofstetter, and I am on the board of directors of Campbell Soup Company and also on a number of nonprofits, including the Anti-Defamation League. Terrific. Hi, everybody. How are you? Thank you for having me. I'm Linda Johnson-Rice. I am chairman of Johnson Publishing Company, and I am on the board of Omnicom, which I think some of you are familiar with, and also Grubhub. Deliveries, deliveries. Hi, everyone. I'm Susan Vobeda. I'm currently the chief marketing officer of the trade desk, and I'm also on the board of CISN, which, of course, markets, the software and services, the communications professionals used to measure their earned media efforts. Great. Thank you. OK, so we're going to play a game. How many boards has Linda served on? Whoever guesses this right, I'm going to make up a prize for you. Oh, no. No. I'll say it's between those two numbers, so we don't do this all day. Nine. Nine. Nine. OK. Wait a minute. There was a tie. Nine. Tell us. Nine boards. When do you sleep? I think it's nine. You think it's nine? I think it's nine. But it's not all at one time. I mean, that's an impossibility. But no, I guess I started serving on corporate boards when I was 29, about to turn 30. And the first board was Continental Bank in Chicago. And I was, without a doubt, a fish out of water. There's no question. First of all, only woman, only African-American, 29, 30 years old, everybody else on the board was over 55 white and male. So where do I fit in? I don't. I don't. But you know what? I have to tell you, it was a great experience. I mean, I sat quiet for about the first six months or so, because you really had to sort of understand what was going on. But that was a great experience. And then, oh my god, do I have to list them all? Yes. Let me think, let me think, let me think. OK, so let's see. Continental Bank, Bausch & Loam, Dial Soap, Quaker Oats, MoneyGram, Kimberly Clark, Grubhub, Omnicom, Tesla. Wow. You're screwed. Amazing. So I've had like no other career. No. But you do have a full-time job. I do. Me too, I do, I do. Which also means nine words. You've pretty much impacted everyone in this room's life in some way, shape, or form. I don't know. Hopefully, maybe somebody bought some huggies when I was on the board of credit. I don't know. Ordered from Grubhub, you know, get a Tesla. OK, cool. So we're going to come back and talk a little bit more with you in just a minute about what you learned through that course. We're going to play another game. OK, anybody familiar with Spencer Stewart? Anybody familiar with the recent report they just put out on CMOs on boards? How many of you are marketers in this room? OK, so there are 9,000 plus Fortune 1,000 board seats. How many of those are sitting CMOs? Take a guess. I have 9,000 seats. Anybody? How much? Wow, no. That's too high? Way too high. Today, 20? Almost. 19? 26. How many of you want to be on a board one day? All right, let's change that. Susan, you're a CMO and you're on a board. The 26 here, I want to represent it. Delis, what did you do to get that seat? Well, I'm in my rookie year on the decision board. It's my first board. And what I did was really make it clear to everyone that that was my ambition, that that was my next step in my career. So I joined the trade desk two years ago. When I was negotiating my offer, I had a discussion with my boss, Jeff Green, about the fact that I had this ambition. And I have, by the way, the best boss in the world. And he said, excellent. How can I help you? And we talked about it all along the way. So that's super important when you're sitting CMO that you have that support. And then I just told people in my network, people that were my friends. And what happened was, sure enough, about a year ago, a close friend of mine who works at Goldman Sachs was at a dinner with the board chair of CISN. And he said he was looking for a director that had digital experience, was seeped in digital and technology, and who was a client profile of CISNs, of course, that's one of the things the CMO can really represent is the customer perspective on a board. And that's how it happened. She made the connection. And interestingly, two weeks later, their recruiter called me and said, I have this opportunity. It's a board. It's called Tizian. And I said, well, you're two weeks too late because I'm already started talking to them and I'm in the process. So it just kind of was meant to be. But truly, especially for women, it's so important to make your ambition known to the people around you and ask for what you want. And that's how it happened for me. That's great. Yeah. And Sarah, you also have marketing experience, but you were also the president of ComScore. You ran an agency, and now you're on the board of Campbell Soup Company. So you had an opinion about how many actual marketers there were. Yeah, I mean, it's a little sensationalist to be perfectly blunt. So it's 26 CMOs, but that doesn't take into account other people who are senior marketers. So I ran an ad agency. So I'm not one of those 26. Tara Levy, for example, who's at Google, is on the board of Blumenbrand. So it's not just those 26. That being said, marketers are woefully underrepresented in the boardroom. And to Susan's point, there is a vacancy in the voice of the customer in the boardroom. And if marketers aren't going to bring that, I'm not really sure who will. And when you look at what boards are looking for today versus years ago, the most important things were finance and prior executive leadership experience. And being a CEO before joining a board does make a fantastic amount of difference, because you don't know what it's like to be in the hot seat until you're in that hot seat. But there's more to that. There are plenty of CFOs that are sitting on boards, plenty of general counsels. But being able to put the voice of the consumer in there, because in the end, most of these boards that we're talking about are speaking to people. And nobody here is actually saying, this is what they want. This is how they behave. This is the reflection of culture today. And those are the things that are so critical when you're thinking about both strategic and tactical decisions of where the companies need to go. So, Susan, you wanted to add to that? Yeah, I mean, 83% of purchase decisions are influenced by women. And so there absolutely needs to be also, in addition to the marketing perspective, the female perspective on boards, because you can really represent the client and the customers in the room, and that's so important. I'd also say, from a CMO perspective, a lot of CMOs today are involved in the digital transformation that most companies are undergoing and really have a see the table when data and technology conversations are happening. And most boards are a little removed from that. So the CMO on a board can really offer that perspective in the conversation. Great, thank you. I would agree with that because I know that on Kimberly-Clark, I'm not on the board anymore, but come on, who buys the majority of Kimberly-Clark products? They're women. And so I think having that woman's perspective on the board was critical. It was critical and it drove some really, I think, smart decisions and some that, we corrected some mistakes, I think, that were just automatically assumed by others. And so I think having the woman's perspective was really, it was key. And then from the, and having a strong marketing person sitting there saying, okay, what is the customer? Who is the customer you're trying to reach here? You've got to have that perspective on the board. Otherwise, I mean, what are you doing? You're selling product here, but who are you selling to? That's right. And so I'm glad you brought that up because I was gonna go deeper into your experience across nine boards. Now, obviously that's like a lifetime of experience, but if you could compare and contrast maybe the, I'll call it the best board and the worst board that you've been on and what differentiated the two? Well, I'm not even gonna go there with the best and the worst. But every board is different because the dynamics are different. The products are different, because she's nodding. The product that you're serving is different and some of the customer base is different. Let's just pick Tesla, which is very unique in and of itself. Elon Musk is probably one of the most brilliant people I've ever met in my life, but he thinks in a different way. And then you take a board that's like Quaker Oats or Kimberly Clark that's much more, I don't think conservative is the right way, but it's much more mainstream. Those boards are very different. You know, the Tesla board, even the Grubhub board, which I love is great. They are very forward thinking as far as innovation and digital and all of that means so much to them. Kimberly Clark, and this is obviously, I haven't been on that board in a while, but they are much more, they're consumer driven. We had to sort of push them when I was on the board for digital. They really had to get across that hurdle because historically that wasn't where they came from. So I think all the boards are different. They have different dynamics and different strengths. I can't say that one was any better than the other. Sometimes you enjoy some a little bit more at different times, but it's been an incredible experience, I have to tell you. So that begs the question, why would you want to be on a board because it's actually a lot of work, right? It's a lot more work than I thought it was doing it. Not that I signed up for this to be a cushy gig or anything like that, but the weight of the company is sitting on the board of directors and also being a rookie myself on a board, there's a major change between being an active operator and being an advisor and counselor. And for those of you in the audience who have worked for me in the past, who I see in the audience, that might be a little challenging for somebody who's used to being an operator. And just because you might see things happening a certain way, does not mean that you're supposed to jump in and save the day. And I think it has taught me at least a tremendous amount of discipline. It has also, one of the reasons that I joined is I was looking to broaden my aperture and understand much more about the totality of the ecosystem. Growing up as, I grew up kind of almost like a two-headed monster. On the one hand, I was running an ad agency so I was a business person. I ran a company and produced a lot of money and grew from 30 people to 1,000 people and something I'm very proud of. The way I did it was by being a marketer and counseling C-suite people on how to advance their organizations. So it was balancing both of those skillsets in order to be able to bring that, but the only thing that was really going to give me the context to be stronger at both was having that outside-in perspective. The commitment levels are significant. We are in an era right now where there's more risk than ever before, especially to public companies, not specific to the one that I'm on or any of the ones are. There's been big movements to limit the number of boards that somebody can sit on, especially when they're an active executive, because you really need to be all-in. The amounts of material that you have to pour through before a board meeting is extraordinary and necessary. So it's not a side hustle. Yeah. We're gonna play another game right now because I'm curious. All of you who raised your hand earlier that you wanted to be a board, let's see if you still raise your hand and we're gonna keep going this. It's awesome. It's awesome. I love it. No, don't get me wrong. I hate for anything. First of all, working hard is fun. You're ruining my game, by the way. Sorry. I didn't want to dissuade anyone. I think it's fabulous. This has been an easy experience. Let's see. Show of hands. Who wants to be on a board one day? Awesome. Oh, you see? It is awesome. That was, I did not do it. All right. Susan. We're not trying to window the pool. We're trying to expand the pool. Inclusive, inclusive, that's right. Okay. What's your experience been like? I really agree with Sarah. It's a lot, it's a very robust experience, more robust than I was expecting. It's not, you know, you meet four times a year, rubber stamp, everything that's going on. That's just not what it's like to be a director anymore. Cision is a really interesting company. It's an acquisitive company. So I'm actually involved in a lot of M&A discussions and analyzing target acquisitions with the board and making decisions about them. And that's a completely different world than my life as a CMO, creating stories for the trade desk brand. So it gives you a perspective and a purview that you wouldn't otherwise have exposure to. I'd also say that you just meet a whole new set of people that are involved in a different company. There's a big private equity firm that's been an investor in Cision for a long time. Like that's been a, they've been a pleasure to meet out of Chicago, GTCR. So the kind of exposure you get really broadens your world and that's been extremely rewarding for me. Great. And I promised we were going to come back and talk to you about some of the skills that you honed through this. So maybe this is a good time to do that you have workload and how it's giving you some of the new skills in your day job. Well, the first thing you have to understand is you've got to try to find, I know this is a buzzword, you've got to try to find some balance here because you can't be great and do everything right all the time. So you really got to, I mean, I would tell everybody, you need to take some time for yourself. That's the first thing. But the other thing is, you really need to learn as much as you can about the company on the board that you serve. You're gonna get a ton of materials and even if you're trying to serve on a board, learn about that company. If that's what you really wanna do, try to understand what that business is about. When you get on the board, let me tell you, your fiduciary responsibility goes through the roof and boards that look great and the companies are doing well, I'm sorry, all businesses hit potholes, all of them. And you're gonna have to deal with that and you're gonna have to know how to navigate and help the company navigate through those things. And really, as a board member, you're there to really help the CEO, help the company do well. And to not, and I'm sure these ladies don't, mince your voice in any way, shape, or form. You really can't. You really have to say what you think and what you believe is gonna help this business move forward. So I have learned to speak up after having served on the board of Continental Bank and sort of been a little quiet. You really can't do that. That's not what you're there for. That's not what you're there for. And in addition, you're really there also to help them add more board members that you think can help with the company. I mean, whether it's women or people of color or whatever it is, I mean, I think that's part of the responsibility of being on a board. Age diversity is also something kind of interesting that so when I first started thinking about joining a board, I met with a search firm. And I said, I'd really like to join a board. Here's what I think I could bring to the table, blah, blah, blah. And the guy looks across the table at me and he says, if you look in the mirror and I said, I do every day, thank you very much. Is there something I need to know? And he said, you're 41. The average age of a board member is 61. And I said, and? And he says, well, you don't really fit the bill. I said, well, maybe that's a problem that you can really help solve. And by the way, I never met with that recruiter again. But when I hear your story about coming in at 29, there is a perspective. I'm on the board of directors of Campbell's Soup. They own Pepperidge Farm. They own Campbell's Soup. They own so many Prego, Pace. There's so many different brands that they only just bought Snyder's Lans. I shop in Walmart. I actually know what it's like to do that. And I can tell you that most of it, and I know what it's like to feed a family and I know what it's like to live on a budget. And I think if you're that far divorced from it, because either, and I know about digital transformation. So if you've never, if you've been so divorced from the consumer experience or from running a company or for understanding the business to your point, which is so critical, does age really make you more qualified? I think it is about the quality of the experience that you're bringing to the table and the stats that you put up on the board to prove why you're worth it. And so yeah, I'm significantly younger than my counterparts on the board, but they love it. At least they say that. And it's interesting because it does depend on the somewhat on the board because Grubhub is a younger board, but it's a younger company. It has a different service and a different product. It's a younger company. So, and I have seen over the years that they're not always going for people that are 60 plus. I think that's a really key insight also because there are these younger modern companies, the technology companies that have a huge developer population in that company and what is it like to build product and manage a product roadmap and invest in software and technology. And many people who are 60 to 70 years old haven't worked in a modern company like that. And so it's a really important perspective that should be on the board. Great. So I'm assuming many of you might have questions. I have one left that I'm gonna ask. So I wanted to prep you guys, get your questions ready because we're gonna have five minutes left and it's gonna go, go, go. I have to know, was it hard having to drive it? Tesla all the time being on the board? I mean, I feel really sorry for you that did you drive it to the all-bar? How big is the violent? This is really funny. I don't even own a car, okay? So when they asked me to be on the board, I said, you know, this is cool, this is great. Love Tesla, this is great. I said, you know, I don't own a car. And they're like, doesn't matter. That's not what we're picking you for. That is not the issue. We're picking you for the skill set that we think you bring and we need on this board, which is a diverse skill set, an inclusive skill set that Silicon Valley just didn't have. And so I can't answer what it's like to own a Tesla because I don't own one. I'll take yours. Oh, there you go. They'll take you to Walmart very quickly. So, but they're great cars. They are amazing. Snacks for Model S. They are amazing cars. So my last question, because I don't want to miss this point and so I'll ask you quickly, give us a high level overview on what it means to be on a committee and then we're going to turn it over and let people ask some questions. Sure, so within the board of directors, there are different committees and they're created differently for different companies. I sit on the Audit and Finance Committee. I am a marketer by heart. I have run companies, nobody would say I'm the expert in Audit and Finance. So why did I get put on the committees? Because for the same reason that Linda doesn't drive a Tesla. Sometimes you don't want your audit committee to be made up of CFOs because they're all looking at the trees. I look at the forest. And I think that kind of balance in a boardroom becomes that much more critical. So if you are looking for a board seat, look at the board composition and try to figure out where the white space might be where you can add value. And that actually helps you sell yourself much better. So I promised, I have so many other questions I could ask, but I know you do too. So let's be fair. Who wants to go first? Yes. You have one now. Ask, you shall receive. So my name is Kelsey Davis. I'm the CEO of Media and Technology Startup that's based here in New York that connects college creatives and brands. And so when talking about being a board member, you guys didn't really talk about the types of companies that you're looking for, as well as the type of leaders when it comes to CEOs that you're trying to work with and engage with to advise. So as someone who's a young CEO, what's advice that you can give to me when it comes to what skills do I need? What are hard skills, soft skills when it comes to being a CEO and what type of board members do I need to look for? And then what type of companies are you guys looking for specifically and CEOs that you're looking for specifically to advise? First of all, congratulations on being the CEO. Yeah. Amazing. Who wants to take that? I'll start. But very quickly, you have to figure out what you want, right? So I think the question is, CEOs have to start out with a degree of self-awareness or surround themselves with people who are gonna give them a nice kick in the nuts and help them understand what they are. And then once you realize where your strengths are and where you need shoring up, then that's where you start building your advisory council and start building the people that you think can either help you grow your business, grow yourself. Yeah, I would agree with that. Those are people what I call your VIPs. So those are the ones that are going to tell you they're gonna give you the straight as to what you need to do in your business and what their advice is, whether you take it or not. And then you need to get into organizations and things like this. And so you get exposed to people. And you don't strike me as a shy person. So I would not be surprised if you come up to us after this is over and try to make a connection. You should. You should. Oh, I like that. Suzette, I'm gonna ask you a whole and I'm gonna give you the next question so we can get another question in. Yes, Danielle. Hi. How do you pick the right board? You know, I'm in the process for a couple of boards and I'm only gonna do one. So how do you know that it's a good board, especially for your first one? Yeah, so I think there are a couple of things that I was looking for that I found in Cision. The first is that the business, it's a software company which is similar to the company I'm in now. And both Cision and the trade desk are dealing with things like product roadmap development. How do you really measure marketing activity? What does attribution mean in marketing? So it was a related company but not a conflict and so that kind of allows me to sort of appropriately share information or best practices between the companies. So that's something I was looking for. It was a strategic decision. The other thing is I just clicked with the people. It's so important to feel like they get you, you get them, they are excited about your perspective and there's really a place and room for you to offer your point of view in the boardroom. Linda, having picked nine boards, will you close this out? First of all, I didn't pick the nine boards. I got lucky and they picked me. But I think you have to find boards that are things that you're passionate about and things that really speak to you and what really drives you. I love consumer products, hence the boards that I'm on. You can see it's a lot of it is consumer products. It's not necessarily insurance and banking although that's where I started off. Nothing wrong with insurance and banking? Not my bailiwick. So I think you gotta find things that really drive you, that are gonna get you excited every day to get up and go to these board meetings because it is a lot of responsibility. But it's also a lot of fun. I also think you have to be mindful of values. I was invited to join, I went through a whole process to join a board. I wasn't really that excited about it but it was one of those things the first one is so hard to get. You wanna make sure, it's like graduating, college and getting your first job. It's so hard. And then they gave me the board schedule and one of the board dates three years out was on Yom Kippur and I'm an observant Jew. And I said, well, I have a problem. I'm not gonna be able to go to the board meeting. They're like, it's okay, you confess that the board meeting. And I said, oh, you know, this is not the board for me. So I mean, there are a set of values that people bring to the board. There are a set of values that bring to the company. Just gotta make sure that you feel that if you're gonna be on that board, you're representing an organization that stands for certain things. So I do think that if you're looking for a tiebreaker, the values is a pretty good one to look at. Cool. How awesome were they? Thanks guys. Thank you. All right. Thank you.