The following director spotlights highlight advice from public company board members who have just joined their first-ever public board within the last two to three years. This article is brought to you through a collaboration between KPMG, Semler Brossy and the Equilar Diversity Network (EDN). Learn more at equilar.com/diversity.
Having grown up as a global client-serving partner at a Big Four, I had always focused first on building trust and personal relationships with my clients to deliver shared success. I didn’t fully appreciate how much more important this becomes in a high-powered public company boardroom, populated by high-profile CEOs and CFOs that must operate as a true peer group to be effective.
On my first public board, I was fortunately able to meet every board member and get to know them a little bit before the first meeting—that meant we were all very clear on our individual areas of contribution, roles and most importantly, the collective voice and ethos of our team as a whole, especially on the top three to five critical matters. This early “getting to know one another” was incredibly valuable in helping the other board members understand what they could expect from me, and the candor, trust and respect strengthened the dynamics of our bilateral and team relationships.
When I walked into my first meeting, I was so energized to see the team in action because we had established camaraderie, a shared commitment to help the CEO and management team be the best they could be, and a shared purpose. The fact that we didn’t echo each other and brought unique, deep and diverse industry perspectives, listened really well and learned from each other, meant that we could cover vast swathes at a rapid pace and yet appropriately focus on the topics that were more controversial and critical.
I encourage first-time directors to be intentional and take the time to build trusted relationships first, “break bread together,” and focus on establishing a shared purpose.
Ekta Singh-Bushell is on the Board and Audit Committee of TeleTech Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: TTEC) and DecisionGPS LLC. Her extensive global, multi-sector experience in finance, audit, digital, technology and cybersecurity provide necessary and desired skills, experience and perspective to public, private and start-up boards. Most recently, she served as Deputy to the First Vice President, COO executive office, at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. She spent most of her career in various leadership roles at Ernst & Young, including global client services and managing partner, Global & Americas IT Effectiveness leader, Northeast advisory people leader and U.S. innovation & digital strategy leader.
It’s well understood that boards are among the most influential leadership roles, and most aspiring executives have board service somewhere on their roadmap. And that should start early. For me personally, I started thinking about it seriously after I had my head down building a specific business for a few years. While I love what I’m doing, as a next step in my career, I recognized I could lend my expertise to other organizations and other teams as a way to contribute outside of my current role.
Earning a board seat is a long process, and I found that boards, and in particular search firms, are most often looking for sitting board members, sitting CEOs or recently retired CEOs. That was and still remains the box to check for a lot of searches, and I received that feedback, both directly and indirectly. My hope is that we start adjusting that framework to be more inclusive, as alternate profiles can do a lot to serve boards.
My network and my CEO here at Zillow Group were very supportive in making introductions and helped me in terms of getting my foot in the door. While those introductions opened up a lot of initial conversations, they were just one component. As I became more educated about the process and determined what I might be able to offer, I targeted the specific boards that interested me and what value I could bring. As I was meeting people, I focused in on what kinds of board searches I was looking for—public, private, industry and skills needed. So my advice would be to spend that time to get really targeted. My process didn’t involve working with search firms, it was more about educating myself, understanding my unique value proposition and making connections. So understand the value you bring, and try to identify a great fit. You want it to be very clear how you add value to the board seats you’re seeking.
Erin Lantz is the Vice President & General Manager, Mortgages, where she leads Zillow Group’s mortgages business. Prior to Zillow, Erin was senior vice president at Bank of America and before entering the mortgage industry, she worked at the Boston Consulting Group. Erin serves on two public company boards: Washington Federal and TrueCar. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
When I was being recruited to be on boards, I discovered that my skills and experience mapped well to director service. However, there is a difference between having the qualifications on paper and putting those skills into action, and it was only after I joined my first public company board that I saw that this was true. For me, being able to ask tough questions and give advice in a way that doesn’t undercut or embarrass management and being able to be critical without being negative is one skill set I gained from my years working as an advisor and equity analyst in the investment community.
I’ve been on the board of Northwest Pipe now for just over two years, and I started out knowing really only one person, and very little about the business. But because I am a good interviewer and have spent a lot of time asking questions, I was able to understand the business quickly and put the puzzle together. I was surprised how quick the learning curve was, and equally surprised that the other board members—people who had no idea who I was—quickly accepted me.
When you talk about diversity, one critical element is diversity of backgrounds. Having spent three decades working with the institutional investment community gives me unique perspective in this environment because I understand how investors look at things. I recently attended a seminar on activism, and it was interesting because the kinds of conversations on both sides resonated with my every day job of what investors looked for. There is a historically meaningful disconnect between what investors say about and to companies and what they actually want. Companies don’t always understand this. When you talk about diversity you don’t see a lot of boards with someone with this kind of diverse perspective.
Michelle Applebaum is currently a Board Director at Northwest Pipe (NASDAQ: NWPX), the country’s largest steel water pipe company. She is a Financial Expert on the Audit Committee, is the Chair of the Nomination and Governance Committee, and has also served on the Compensation Committee. For 23 years she was at Citigroup/Salomon Brothers, where she became the #1-ranked steel equity analyst and Managing Director and co-founded the firm’s steel investment banking unit. She also led a capital markets advisory boutique from 2003 to 2014 where she competed with bulge bracket firms providing equity research to money managers and advising public/private companies and PE firms.