
Leadership Talks: Women in Venture Capital – Insights from Leading Women Veterans
I’m excited to share with you all about the fantastic webinar event that I hosted on April 19th. As the moderator, I had the pleasure of leading a panel of four leading women veterans of the C-suite leadership ecosystem, where we discussed a range of governance topics with a focus on enhancing balance, expertise, and composition in the critical board environment of private and public companies.
During the webinar, we covered three insightful segments that focused on the historical perspective of women in the VC industry, building diverse teams, and nurturing the next generation of female founders and board members. One of the highlights of the event was hearing from the panelists about the people they admire in the VC industry and the valuable lessons they have learned from them.
A Short Preview of the Webinar: https://boardsi.com/short-preview-leadership-talks-women-in-venture-capital-webinar/
Full Webinar: https://boardsi.com/leadership-talks-women-in-venture-capital-webinar/
At Boardsi, we’re committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in the VC industry, and we believe that nurturing the next generation of female founders and board members is essential for driving real impact. We’re grateful to all our panelists and attendees who joined us for this fantastic event.
If you missed out on the webinar, you can catch a short preview of it on our website, and the full webinar is available for viewing as well. This webinar marks the beginning of an exciting journey for us at Boardsi as we enter the VC community and launch a new initiative to promote diversity within the board sector and beyond.
Stay tuned for more updates on our upcoming events, and thank you for your time!

WEBINAR – Mastering Executive Branding: Building Your Professional Image
Join me on April 11th, 2023 at 10 AM PST for an exclusive webinar with Martin Rowinski: “Mastering Executive Branding: Building Your Professional Image”! Discover the power of personal branding to enhance your leadership presence and career growth. Limited space is available, so register today to secure your spot! 🔗 [REGISTER] #ExecutiveBranding #Leadership #CareerGrowth
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j4pRoxrSSBaUa2inHhEGdQ

If You Want to Be a Good Leader, Understand The Link Between Business Values and Leadership
Let’s look at two different lessons about leadership and corporate values:
In 1982, Johnson and Johnson (J&J) discovered that someone had contaminated their Tylenol Extra Strength capsules in at least half a dozen Chicago pharmacies and grocery stores. Because of their corporate values committed to public safety, J&J leadership responded immediately: warned customers to stop consuming it, halted advertising and removed all Tylenol from store shelves until they could determine the extent of the tampering.
In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig platform exploded, and its owner, British Petroleum (BP), realized it had a leak. Company officials first reported the leak volume was low, but when the rig sunk days later and eleven workers died, investigations into BP’s practices found they took shortcuts, cut corners and ignored early warning signs. Its leadership was dishonest from the get-go, and to recover, the company had to revisit and update its corporate values.
Business values are the guiding principles that shape an organization’s culture and inform its decisions and actions. Good leadership, in turn, is essential for aligning an organization’s actions with its values and creating a positive and productive culture.
Read the full article, and click the logo below:

Executive branding: LinkedIn Profile, how is yours?
LinkedIn is a great way for professionals to show potential employers, clients, and peers their skills, experience, and accomplishments.
When companies are looking to fill a Board of Directors or Board of Advisors position, they often turn to LinkedIn as a research tool to identify potential candidates. Because of this, it’s important for professionals to have a polished, up-to-date LinkedIn profile that shows off their skills and accomplishments.
One of the first things that companies may look for when researching a candidate is their profile picture. A professional headshot can help you make a good first impression and show that you are professional and pay attention to details. It’s also important to make sure that your profile is complete, with a detailed work history and a summary that shows off your skills and experience.
In addition to having a well-crafted profile, it’s important to use LinkedIn as a platform to brand yourself as an expert in your industry. This could include sharing thought leadership content, participating in industry discussions, and engaging with others in your network. By showing off your skills and knowledge, you can make yourself more visible and more credible as a possible candidate for a board position.
When companies are researching candidates for board positions, they may also look for evidence of a candidate’s ability to work collaboratively and constructively with others. This could involve looking at endorsements or recommendations from other people in the industry or looking at the candidate’s activity on the platform to see how they interact with people in their network.
Click the LEADAFI logo to read the article

Executive Branding
Executive branding is becoming increasingly important in today’s competitive business landscape. It’s no longer enough for executives to simply have impressive resumes and accomplishments – they also need to be able to communicate their personal brand and unique value proposition to their target audience.
Here are some key reasons why executive branding is so important:
Establishing credibility and trust
In today’s fast-paced business environment, credibility and trust are essential for success. By developing a strong personal brand, executives can establish themselves as experts in their field, which can increase their credibility and the trust that others have in them. This can lead to better relationships with stakeholders, improved partnerships, and increased sales.
Attracting top talent
The success of any organization depends on the talent of its employees. Strong executive branding can help attract top talent to the organization, as candidates are often drawn to companies with strong leaders. This can help the organization build a team of high-performing employees who are committed to achieving the company’s goals.
Improving company reputation
An executive’s personal brand can have a significant impact on the overall reputation of the company. When an executive has a strong personal brand, it can improve the perception of the company in the eyes of customers, investors, and other stakeholders. This can lead to increased sales, improved partnerships, and better relationships with stakeholders.
Increasing thought leadership
Executive branding can help position the executive as a thought leader in their industry. By sharing their insights and expertise through blogs, articles, and speaking engagements, executives can establish themselves as experts in their field. This can lead to increased media coverage, speaking engagements, and other opportunities to share their insights.
Differentiating from competitors
In today’s crowded marketplace, it’s important for companies to differentiate themselves from their competitors. A strong executive brand can help differentiate the executive and their company from competitors in the industry. This can help attract customers and investors who are looking for something unique.
In summary, executive branding is an essential tool for executives who want to establish their reputation, build trust, attract top talent, improve company reputation, increase thought leadership, and differentiate themselves from their competitors. By developing a strong personal brand, executives can position themselves and their company for success in today’s competitive business environment.
Click the LEADAFI logo to read about Developing your brand
For more about Executive Branding, Click the Boardsi logo

Are You Tired of Losing Valuable Employees? Here’s How to Train and Build Leaders From Within Your Team
Creating a leadership pipeline within an organization can save a company — here’s how to do it.
Losing good people is expensive. In 2017, Gallup estimated replacing one employee to cost anywhere from half to double that person’s annual salary. That translates to between $660,000 to $2.6 million per year for a 100-person organization with an average salary of $50,000.
That costly burden makes it even harder to survive in a competitive labor market, and today’s market is more competitive than ever. According to a 2020 study by Crayon, a market and competitive intelligence tools supplier, 90% of businesses surveyed feel the market has become more competitive; 48% of respondents said it had become “much more” competitive. Add in an exhausted workforce and fears of recession, and most companies today would struggle to survive the loss of good people.
Company founders and executives depend on their leadership teams for stability. While we as leaders try our best to build loyalty and engagement to keep them, we also need a plan if it ever comes down to having to replace them. Record-breaking quit rates are only finally starting to slow down. Considering how costly and difficult it is to attract and recruit high-quality talent to replace those who leave, everyone should aim to train and recruit leaders from within. This way, we not only offer them a reason to stay with our company, but we also develop their talent and potential contribution to it.
Click the Entrepreneur logo to read the article

Diversity Is Not the Same to Everyone. Here’s Why That Matters
If companies want to reap the benefits of diversity in its truest form, it’s time to consider diversifying it.
I know I’m not the typical picture of diversity. However, growing up in communist Poland offered me a unique approach to problems and solutions that most businesspeople I meet today never consider. Diversity of thought — combining our differences to cover as many diverse perspectives as possible in our decision-making — is where companies find the most benefits.
While diversity and inclusion of traditionally marginalized groups are important, being truly diverse takes more thought than people realize. To truly experience greater diversity, we need to eliminate bias, go beyond what diversity looks like and choose the people that bring something new to the table.
Click the Entrepreneur logo to read the article

How to Stay Calm in a Crisis and Lead Your Team Through Anything
Calmness is the key to leading through a crisis — leaders who stay calm can get their teams through anything.
The pandemic brought a wave of global uncertainties: supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, inflation, rising prices and an oncoming recession. Crisis after crisis has characterized the 2020s.
When facing so much uncertainty, it can be easy to worry about the future. That worry often then becomes doubt, which can quickly spiral into panic. And when we panic, we usually rush. But try to take a step back and think of your last rushed decision that ended up being a good one; panic is never a good foundation for making healthy decisions. Calmness, on the other hand, is the key to leading others through a crisis. Leaders who can stay calm can get their teams through anything.
Click the Entrepreneur logo to read the article

How to Best Recruit Board Members Outside of Your Industry
The value of board members from outside your industry cannot be understated – here’s why.
ew individuals are experts in everything. Even the cumulative expertise in most businesses could use input from more experts in diverse areas. This is why we have boards — a panel of experts in areas that fill in the gaps in our existing company knowledge base.
But even once we find the right group of experts from our industry to take a seat on our board, we would still stand to benefit from the wisdom of more diverse perspectives and experiences. Their range of successes and failures becomes additional resources to put together more tried and tested strategies in the face of new challenges.
Outside board members can bring a lot to a company, but to find the right ones for the job, we need to know what to look for:
Related: How Board Members Can Help You Through a Recession
Click the Entrepreneur logo to read the article

How Board Members Can Help You Through a Recession
With recession looming, having a strong board is now more important than ever.
First, COVID-19. Then, health mandates. Add in choked-up supply chains, the Russia-Ukraine war, rising prices, interest rates, and inflation. Economists are starting to unite around the prediction — a recession is inevitable.
No one has a crystal ball, and the future seems more uncertain than ever, but if we break these problems down (e.g., pandemics, war, and rising food and fuel prices leading to a recession), we realize that many of us have lived through similar challenges before. Either we made it out on the other side alive and thriving, or we made mistakes and learned what not to do. These insights are valuable for getting through this next round of uncertainty.
Alone, a business owner can see issues from a limited amount of angles. Especially as first-time leaders, it can be hard to think outside the box with little experience to reference. But, with a board, its members’ expertise can help in more informed decision-making. Leaders can lean into the diverse range of expertise their board members have — their “been there, done that’s” — to tackle challenges and opportunities better and get their company through even the toughest of times, including the oncoming recession.
Related: Building a Better Board: 5 Things Every New Board Member Should Know
Click the Entrepreneur logo to read the article