Inclusive Insights: Cultivating Change in the Boardroom

Season 5, Episode 5

This episode features a conversation between Lori Nishiura Mackenzie, co-founder of the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab and faculty member of Leading Women Executives; and Deb DeHaas, CEO, Corporate Leadership Center.  Lori and Deb talk about Stanford’s recent research and playbooks around board diversity and culture, along with Deb’s real-life experience and advice across her many years of serving on corporate, nonprofit, and higher education boards.   

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 

We encourage you to connect with your peer board, team or colleagues to discuss the podcast. Please use the following questions to guide your conversation: 

  1. What ideas from this discussion can you take back to any Boards you are involved with that could help create a more inclusive Board culture? 
  2. What other ideas have you seen that work to create cultures of inclusion on Boards? 
  3. As you think about these playbooks, what might you take from them to also incorporate a stronger culture of inclusion in your teams? 

Highlights: 

4:27 The Impact Lab 

6:07 Inclusive seats of power 

8:24 The importance of focusing on building an inclusive board culture 

10:07 Playbooks for Board diversity and culture 

16:00 Setting norms with Boards 

22:10 Building interpersonal relationships on boards 

21:52 Engaging with and across differences 

29:48 Defining board culture and looking forward