Tag Archives: corporate directors forum

Gravity is a Bitch

Posted on October 9, 2011 by
Gravity's a bitch

Hi everyone.  A few weeks ago I had the honor of receiving a very prestigious Corporate Director’s Forum award for Board Director of the Year.  The award is given each year to Board Directors who are nominated in 6 categories (corporate governance, enhancement of economic value, companies in transition, corporate citizenship, not for profit governance and lifetime achievement).  The awards are presented at a gala dinner; I received my award at a lovely event in San Diego on September 14th attended by more than 500 people.  I have been asked by multiple people to send them a copy of my speech as it seemed to be pretty popular. Thus, I decided to publish it below.

The Corporate Directors Forum event is quite a big production and it has a theme every year.  This year’s theme was The Right Stuff, the 1983 movie about the original US Mercury 7 astronauts.  It’s a great movie that covers the history of the U.S. Space program and the wild and crazy pilots that became the first astronauts.  The event had all sorts of movie and NASA footage and cool space gear in … (read the rest)

Posted in General Business Issues, Girls Rule!, Uncategorized, Women in Venture Capital & Private Equity | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Board Games

Posted on July 21, 2011 by
Okay Board Members, Stroke! Stroke!

As a venture/private equity investor, I have one of those jobs that is somewhat nebulous to most people.  They ask questions like, “What the heck do you actually DO?”  “How do you spend your time on an average day?” and “Do you actually, you know, work?”

For those of you who think that the life of the venture capital or private equity investor looks like a walk in the park and that all of us are sitting around eating pre-peeled grapes while getting neck rubs and rolling naked in cash, all I can say is, “I wish.”

It’s actually a pretty intense job, much more complex and nuanced than I expected when I first started at it 13 years ago.  So much of it is about working in partnership with people in an environment where you personally have little control or direct authority to make things happen and yet where you feel you know the right thing to do (“so why aren’t they just doing it already?!”).  You have to drink from a magical cocktail of knowledge, experience, guessing, and luck to figure out what needs to get done.  … (read the rest)

Posted in Healthcare private equity, Healthcare Venture Capital, Private Equity, Uncategorized, Venture Capital | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment