I saw this article and thought I should share it with you.  

Editor’s note: Aileen Lee is a partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where she focuses on investing in consumer internet ventures. You can read more about Lee at KPCB.com and follow her on Twitter at @aileenlee.
Good questions have been asked lately of tech companies without gender diversity on their boards of directors. While women comprise 51% of the population, they make up only 15.7% of Fortune 500 boards of directors, less than 10% of California tech company boards, and 9.1% of Silicon Valley boards.
Why should we care? For one, women are the power users of many products and it’s just smart business to have an understanding of key customers around the table. Could you imagine a game company without any gamers on the leadership team or board?
If you’re not aware, studies also show companies with gender diversity at the top drive better financial performance on multiple measures – for example, 36% better stock price growth and 46% better return on equity. And, studies show the more women, the better the results. This is likely because teams with more females demonstrate higher collective intelligence and better problem solving ability. So it’s probably not a coincidence the world’s most admired companies have more women on their boards than the average company.
There is a group of public companies that gets these insights – they are quietly adding some of the smartest women in Silicon Valley to their boards of directors. And most are not making much noise about it, perhaps they want to benefit from their savvy while their competitors are asleep at the wheel.
I was impressed by a move by AutoNation, the country’s largest auto retailer ($4.6B market cap). They did an extensive search and last year added Alison Rosenthal to their board – an off-the-F500-radar-screen, Brown and Stanford educated, early Facebook team member who led FB’s core BD activities for 5 years in social, growth, international and mobile.
Why add a 30-something female to a male board with an average age of 58? Mike Maroone, AutoNation’s President and COO explained, “We looked at our board [and realized] it’s male dominated, while women make over 50% of the purchasing decisions in our business. And, the travel, music and news industries have been transformed by digital. We’re trying to transform the auto business and connect with the thinking of the digital generation, and we need this level of insight at the board level.”
AutoNation is not alone in identifying next gen talent that adds diversity of gender, thought, age and experience to the boardroom, long the domain of (male) titans of big business, law and finance.
LinkedIn ($9.1B) was ahead of the curve when they added longtime Netflix CMO Leslie Kilgore to the board in 2010. And in the past year, TripAdvisor ($4.1B market cap) added former Google International exec Sukhinder Singh Cassidy to the board of directors; HomeAway ($2.1B) added Google Ads head Susan Wojcicki; LuluLemon ($9.3B) added FB local-and-mobile exec Emily White; Starbucks ($36.5B) added 29-year-old Clara Shih, CEO of Hearsay Social and author of The Facebook Era; and Scripps Networks Interactive ($6.9B) just announced the addition of Gina Bianchini, CEO/founder of Mighty Software.
Of this, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner says, “Some boards may look for candidates already on other boards, or CEOs of other companies. In the case of Leslie’s seat, we were looking to add someone with specific expertise, CEO or non-CEO, to complement our board – and the results from broadening our consideration set have been outstanding.”
Christine Day, CEO of LuluLemon, offered similar sentiments. “We wanted a board member who understands how our target guest thinks, is a leader in the world of digital innovation and social, and understands steep growth. Emily is part of a new generation that is going to change the game.”
Ebay ($45.1B market cap) also recently added Facebook product marketing exec Katie Mitic to their board. Of this, CEO John Donohoe told me, “We were looking to add people who understand the web of the future and our consumer (50% of whom are women), and who are product and tech savvy. Katie is a 12 out of 10 on these. And, we have a strong commitment to attracting, developing and retaining female leaders. There’s also a cultural impact outside of the boardroom – it’s inspiring to our team members and community to see someone like Katie on our board.”
By adding new blood to the boardroom, these companies are getting a four-fer, or more: 1) gender diversity, and in most cases, age diversity around the table; 2) better understanding of core customers; 3) Social-Mobile-Local expertise and insight into digital platforms like Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Path, Square, Flipboard and Pinterest that are fundamentally changing business; and 4) hyper growth and rapid innovation DNA.
These factors are driving a trend to change board composition. And from what I’ve heard from CEOs, the smartest companies will continue to diversify their boards rather than “checking a box.” Initiatives like 20by2020 will also help.
There’s an opportunity to make your board, and your company, smarter by adding diversity, especially of gender. And if you’re at a smaller company, there’s a greater likelihood that your board lacks diversity – and that’s an opportunity to seize, especially if your company counts on females as key users. Savvy companies are quietly changing up their boards of directors and teams, and this is giving them better collective intelligence, more community admiration, and better financial results.
PS if your company would benefit from new DNA in the boardroom, there is great talent to consider. Here are just some examples of female leaders who are savvy about digital innovation, customer experience and hypergrowth. I’ve listed talent with experience from larger companies, as startups are generally less able to share their talent:
Allison Johnson, former VP Global Marketing Comm, Apple
Anne Raimondi, VP Marketing, SurveyMonkey
Amy Chang, Head of Global Product, Ads Measurement, Google
Barbara Messing, CMO, Tripadvisor
Caterina Fake, Founder, Pinwheel; cofounder, Flickr and Hunch
Carolyn Everson, VP, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook
Heather Harde, former CEO, TechCrunch
Jennifer Bailey, VP WW online stores, Apple
Jessica Herrin, CEO/founder, Stella & Dot
Jessica Steel, EVP of Business & Corporate Development, Pandora
Joanne Bradford, Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer, Demand Media
Julie Bornstein, SVP, Sephora Digital
Katie Jacobs Stanton, Head of International Strategy, Twitter
Kerry Wharton Cooper, CMO, Modcloth; ex VP eCommerce, Walmart.com
Lori Goler, VP of People and Recruiting, Facebook; ex marketing, eBay
Marissa Mayer, VP of Local, Maps and Location Services, Google
Raji Arasu, VP of Technology, eBay
Selina Tobaccowala, VP of Product and Engineering, SurveyMonkey
Stephanie Tilenius, Global Commerce Strategy, Google
Tina Sharkey, Chairman and Global President, BabyCenter

TV Presenting V Pitching

        Occasionally I get asked what makes me qualified to talk to small businesses about how to pitch.   I’m not a business expert,  I have never worked in mergers and acquisitions, balance sheets are not my preferred bedtime reading, and yet I work successfully with lots of businesses to develop their pitches, and win them funding.

        What’s the first thing you have to do when faced with a panel of investors?    Answer – Get their attention.

        Do you know how long a TV presenter has to get your attention before you reach for the remote control?    Time yourself with your own remote.  Hop around the channels and see how long you give each presenter before you decide whether to stay and listen or switch over.   It’ll be a maximum of….10 seconds.

        That’s me on Sky News, and all I get to keep the audience's attention is.....10 seconds.   So broadcast journalists and presenters like me know a fair bit about how to grab people’s attention. The headlines at the top of the news?   They’re attention grabbers.  And we have to write them.  They have to make you want to stay to hear the rest.    Just like a pitch, you have to get their attention at the top and then keep it.   Investors are like TV viewers, they have a surfeit of choice, and they are easily bored.  

        Back to TV -  on a daily basis journalists like me have to take a blizzard of information, on almost any subject under the sun and turn it around very fast,  into short snappy scripts that are easy to understand.   We translate the information for the audience.   It has to be easily understood by everyone who watches, from any background.    Pitchers have to pitch to all kinds of investors, with different backgrounds and different levels of experience in the pitcher's field.   So the easier the pitch is to understand the better the pitcher's chance of keeping the investor's attention.

        The next time you're watching the news and are easily following some complicated economic story, or a science story, or even a showbiz story, remember that the journalist is pitching you the story.   And if you are still listening at the end, that journalist has done a good job.    That’s what we do, and those are the skills we can pass on to help businesses pitch better.

Public Speaking or Death?

        How afraid are you of having to speak in front of an audience of any kind?  
       
        Does this ring a bell?

        I have trained so many people who would rather sell their kidneys than have to stand up and speak.   But many of them are almost as afraid of having to admit they're afraid, as they are of the public speaking that’s causing their panic.
       
        How many situations does this apply to?  So many.  
       
        You have to pitch to a panel of investors for funding, present a report to your board, give a speech in public or face journalists with cameras, lights and microphones.
 
        I always start any training course or consultation by addressing the fear.   The first thing to establish is that it’s ok to be afraid.  I’m going to repeat this because it’s really important   It’s ok to be afraid.      You will not lose face by admitting to it, and it’s better to acknowledge it and tackle it than to pretend it isn’t there.   If you are putting yourself in an unfamiliar situation, you are right to be nervous, you are not on home territory.   Or you have done it a few times and it didn’t go well.  That does not mean it won’t go well in the future.   It’s a learned skill not a dark art. 

        Here’s a typical list of what makes people sick to their stomach with nerves.

            Being/Looking nervous
            Your mind going blank
            Getting it wrong
            Not getting the outcome you want
            Someone stealing your idea
            Difficult questions
            Someone contradicting you
            Looking Stupid

        How do you get over these fears?

        Know your message and prepare…..prepare…..prepare. 

        If you find yourself in this situation and you can only go into that room to present your pitch or do an interview if you know there’s a fast car with the engine running at the back door…….

        Take a deep breath and grab a pen.

        Write down a list of things you are afraid of……absolutely everything, no matter how small or silly you may think it is, if it’s making you nervous, write it down.   Then point by point, write a strategy for coping with that particular fear.

        Here’s that typical list again with an accompanying strategy.

Being/Looking nervous -   The more you prepare and practise the less nervous you will be. 

Your mind going blank –  Keep it simple.  Don’t overcrowd your message with too many points.  Have a keyword for each point you need to make, if you go blank you’ll only have to remember the next keyword to jog your memory.

Getting it wrong – See the above answer.   If your message is simple,  it’s unlikely you’ll get it wrong.

Not getting the outcome you want - You can significantly increase your chances of a good outcome if you are well prepared and have a simple message that’s easy to deliver. 

Someone stealing your idea - You have to talk about your ideas, you never know who will be able to help you.   

Difficult questions - Prepare.  If you know your stuff, you can answer anything.  Anticipate all the possible difficult questions, so that you have an answer for them at your fingertips and stay on message.

Someone contradicting you – if you’ve prepared and you are confident in your message, you can answer your critics.  If you can’t then perhaps they have a point which you need to take on board.

Looking Stupid -  If you take on the above strategies you will not look stupid, you will look confident and well prepared.

        You’ll have noticed there’s a common theme that keeps cropping up in the strategies for overcoming fear. Prepare and practise.  There is no substitute for these two.  

        And remember the Golden Rule……Keep It Simple.   Make sure your pitch/message/presentation is simple enough to memorise and easy to deliver.  Don’t overcomplicate it. 

        And prepare …… prepare …… prepare …..

One Liners

        Doug Richard, a former dragon on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den now runs a really good enterprise called School for Startups.  I don’t really need to explain what it does, the name does, as they say, what it says on the tin. www.schoolforstartups.co.uk

        If you are an SME or thinking of being a startup I highly recommend you check him out.  He has a huge amount of valuable advice which he passes on freely.

        He’s a very astute man, he’s made a lot of money from a standing start selling computer parts, and he’s a really good and charming communicator, so his training sessions and talks are worth listening to.  I watched him run a session for small businesses at the Royal Society, on how to get a pitch ready for investors, what figures you need, how to value your business etc.

        He asked me afterwards for a critique of the session, from a presentation skills point of view.     I thought it was really excellent, but there was one element missing.   He invited a few of the businesses up on stage to pitch to the audience and then invited comments on their pitches and made his own comments.  He asked them questions to get them to improve their pitch.  

        But learning to pitch is not as simple as taking a few notes on how its done them suddenly being able to do it.   It takes guidance, and there was no room for that in a very packed day to a large audience.   But it was a great introduction to the traps many pitchers fall into.   And it’s not just the inexperienced who fall into those traps, almost everyone falls into one of them.

        One of the biggest is to not have boiled down your idea to its very essence – the elevator pitch if you like.   The one thing that struck me instantly when listening to Doug’s pitchers was that when he asked each one of them to sum up their business in a single sentence, they couldn’t do it.  Or they managed a sentence that was either uninspiring or didn’t focus on the most attractive part of their business from an investors point of view.

        There was one business presented by the business owner, who was a very accomplished academic in a technical field.  His pitch was so confusing and technical it left everyone in the room wondering what it was and what he was selling.   After a lot of questioning from Doug I managed to work out that he had managed to create a revolutionary waste management system for heavy industry that made the waste saleable.   But he’d buried the fact that the businesses would also get a grant for proper disposal, and that they’d manage to avoid the fines many businesses end up paying.

        So what would his one-liner be?   When chatting to various participants over a glass of wine after the session,  I asked them to come up with one for the project.  They struggled, a few people came up with quite technical answers.   I asked Doug, he scratched his head.   Then he looked at me and said “OK Genius what would you say?!”.
 
        I told him if I was pitching to him, I would look him straight in the eye and say “I can make you three lots of money from one lot of rubbish, do I have your attention?”.  He roared with laughter and said “Absolutely!”

        Keep it simple folks, always works.