Dive Brief:
- Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, serial entrepreneur and former Google executive, launched a new list of future female board members, Fast Company reports. Many times, women leaders face difficulties breaking through the male-dominated IT industry thanks to the reliance on referrals.
- In February, Singh Cassidy launched Boardlist, which is a directory of female candidates who have been nominated by businesspeople in Silicon Valley. The Academy of Management Journal published recent analysis that revealed female representation on boards of directors as favorable to business strategy.
- Boardlist allows women to register for free and be referred by their peers. Recruiters and venture-capital firms pay a small fee. Currently, there are more than a thousand women on the list.
Dive Insight:
Silicon Valley has been a mecca for male leaders and innovators for years, so it's been tough for women to break the glass ceiling when men are not readily mentoring or recommending women for positions of power. The lack of a pipeline or network for such women is a real problem for upward-looking women. Resources like Boardlist make it possible for every eligible women to take her career to the next level in a board position.
Recruiters win from this arrangement too, because the women who are on the list are already vetted by peers and have valuable experience and credentials that are nearly impossible to find elsewhere. While only 4.2% of women are CEOs for Fortune 500 companies, this number is growing and expected to continue to do so over the next few years.
