She Did What?! My Path to the Corporate Boardroom
I started She Did What?! to create a platform for honest conversations about taking personal and professional risks, learning how to honestly self-evaluate, and continuously reinventing yourself. This is a place to pull back the curtain. Recently, someone asked me, “Why did you go back to school to get your MBA at almost 40?” I think they thought the answer would be about my business, West Front Strategies, or a deep love of learning. Both are certainly valid reasons to go back to school, but they aren’t why I pursued my MBA. I went back to school and earned my MBA to create a pathway to joining corporate boards.
I’ve been asked over the years how I managed to navigate the business world to find opportunities to serve on boards. The truth is that I didn’t have a blueprint, but I broke the goal “serve on corporate boards'' into bite-size chunks (e.g. sharpen business acumen, gain experience on nonprofit boards, expand my network) and went from there. The first step in my mind then was to get the strong business background I felt was needed to be an asset on a board, and that meant going back to school.
I had a lot to consider when thinking about the timing of going back to school. I was almost in my 40s. I had a 6 year old at home. I wanted to be home and spend time with my family, but as I’ve talked about before, I believe in being radically honest with yourself about where you are, your strengths and your weaknesses. When I looked at my life — truly, critically looked at my life — I knew that politics was and still is my strength, but I was fascinated by corporate life. So I spent years thinking about how I could remain in politics while getting a taste of corporate life. Corporate boards became my solution for how to do both.
At this point, I’d worked in government affairs for almost 20 years and managed P&Ls at the law firm where I’d worked, but thought I would need more of a business background to really be an asset on a board. So, I decided to do an international MBA at Georgetown. While my specific program required a lot of travel, I was able to balance my life because I got my MBA during an election year. Government affairs revolves around when Congress is in session, and Congress isn’t in session as much during election years, which gave me the flexibility I needed to not only go to school, but to maintain my professional and personal lives.
My MBA sharpened my business acumen and prepared me for the corporate world. The nice thing about my particular program is that it didn't train me to become the CFO. It trained me to be the CFO’s boss. After grad school, I felt prepared for a corporate board, but it didn’t happen immediately.
In fact it took three years of additional work to make it happen. From my experience, joining a board took a lot of networking, boldly putting myself out there to say that I was interested in board opportunities and the luck of being in the right place at the right time. During those three years between my MBA and my first corporate board, I joined numerous nonprofit boards and got hands-on experience to augment my professional background. I also thought about what I could bring to the table. I realized that my knowledge of how the regulatory environment works and how Congress works is my differentiator. So I made a point of targeting highly regulated industries, especially ones where I already had experience, because that’s where I could add the most value as a Director. In the end, my strategy was successful.
Looking back now, I think part of why I was so successful at becoming a Director was because I started with a very honest assessment of where I was and identified the gaps in between there and where I wanted to go. I didn’t expect overnight results, and I reached my goal by continuing to chip away at it piece by piece until it came to fruition.
Ultimately, radical honesty with myself is my strongest strength and driver to keep pivoting and reinventing myself. Sure, I could have continued on in my career without adding boards to my responsibilities, but I wanted to stretch myself, to create new opportunities while playing to my strengths.
What’s your strongest strength for growth? Tell me in the comments!
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