On April 19, 2023, at noon EST Boardsi and Martin Rowinski discussed a range of governance topics with four leading women veterans of the C-suite leadership ecosystem.
While corporations continue to emphasize balance in boardroom leadership, significant progress remains to be made for private and public companies to enhance the balance, expertise, and composition of the critical board environment.
Join our panel of leaders as they discuss their own stories across the C-suite as founders, entrepreneurs, investors, and change agents in startups, venture capital, private equity, and public companies.
Topic One: This webinar segment focused on the historical perspective of women in the VC industry and their critical role in the venture capital ecosystem. The speaker discussed the importance of having more women in the VC industry, shared her admiration for some influential women in the industry, and provided insights into the best pathways to becoming a successful VC.
Topic Two: In this segment, the importance of building diverse teams in the VC industry was discussed, along with strategies for promoting diversity and inclusion. The benefits of having diverse teams in the VC industry were also highlighted.
Topic Three: The final segment of the webinar focused on nurturing the next generation of female founders and board members. The speaker shared some of the best ways to uplift the future generation of female founders, discussed the challenges of getting more women on boards, and provided helpful resources and tools that can drive real impact.
Martin Rowinski, co-founder and CEO of Boardsi, a digital human capital recruitment platform that was started in 2017 and is a leader in its field, will lead the discussion. He will be joined by:
Melinda Chelliah
Entrepreneurially-minded strategist with 20+ years of finance, accounting, operations, governance, customer support, and public accounting experience at top-tier companies including Target, Universal Music Group, Disney, Deloitte, and EY. Developer of systems and tools that provide transparency into key financial and operational metrics for all levels of management.
CFO and key strategist for emerging brands such as Dermstore, and Emerios with proven effectiveness at improving operational efficiency to support revenue growth. Successful Co-Founder of Resources Global Professionals (IPO within 5 years) and Tailored for Growth focused on developing strategic partnerships and business development.
Melinda Moore
Award-winning entrepreneur with 15+ years of evaluation and investment success with a keen understanding of product-market fit, consumer insight, operations and performance marketing. Melinda has a founder-driven approach that has been the basis of all my investments from pre-revenue startups to multi-million dollar companies. Notable exits include STV Communications (acquired by Sonic Foundry), LovingEco (acquired by John Paul Dejoria), LOVE GOODLY (acquired by Novica), and iConsumer (mini IPO). She has a diverse investment background and has deployed over $200 million in working capital, equity crowdfunding and traditional venture capital. Melinda is an advisor to Coyote Ventures, and a mentor at TechStars and Big Idea Ventures.
Melinda is the author of How to Raise Money: The Ultimate Guide to Crowdfunding and has raised over 100 million via equity crowdfunding. She served as the Senior Vice President for Entertainment Media Ventures. Her work has been widely recognized by Digital LA (Top 50 Digital Women in 2015), the Green Business Bureau and the National Association of Women Business Owners’ Hall of Fame. Melinda serves on the Board of A Sense of Home and has a B.A. from UCLA.
Sandra Campos
Sandra Campos is a Board Member, 3x CEO, 2x entrepreneur, and advisor in retail and technology. Throughout her career, she has built global lifestyle brands and has been instrumental in turnarounds, digital transformations, innovations, and international expansion.
As a consumer, supply chain, and tech-focused operator, she is a board director for Fabric, a modular and headless commerce solution; Big Lots, omnichannel retailer on the NYSE; Daniel’s Jewelers, the fourth largest independent jewelry retailer in the US; PureRed, a PE backed advertising technology services company.
Sandra’s C-Suite roles include being the first female CEO of iconic global retail brand Diane Von Furstenberg, President of a portfolio of $1bn global contemporary brands including Juicy Couture, Bebe, BCBG.and Herve Leger, and President of O Oscar (an Oscar de la Renta division).
As an entrepreneur, she created the first teen celebrity brand management company, in partnership with Selena Gomez. Dream out Loud by Selena Gomez became the actress’s first lifestyle brand and was exclusive to Kmart in fourteen product categories for five years.
Ms. Campos is a frequent keynote speaker, panelist, and regular contributor and thought leader on topics ranging from supply chain, leadership, retail innovation, ESG, and diversity in the workplace. She has received many awards, including top 100 Latina Leaders by Latino Leaders Magazine, ALPA’s Most Powerful Latina 2020-2022, Top Woman in Retail, 2019 Top Líderes in Business by Hispanic Executive Magazine, and has been honored for her service by Girls Inc. Sandra was also a member of the first all-women led SPAC, which had a business combination on the NYSE in 2021. She is an advocate for Latinos, invests in early stage Gen-Z companies, and advises startup founders. She recently launched Latina Disruptors, an event highlighting and honoring entrepreneurs who are outperforming through their execution.
Brenda McCabe
Brenda McCabe is a pragmatic, experienced and independent advisor. After 25 years in corporate America and Europe as VP in Sales, Operations, Governance and Auditor for professional service and pharmaceutical companies, she left the corporate world in 2008 to work with a disruptive technology firm in renewable energy.
Brenda also serves on corporate boards. She started in 2013 at a public pharmaceutical company as audit chair and co chair of a strategic committee that led to a reverse merger while in Spain. This was soon followed by independent board positions in a Private Equity portfolio company in healthcare and a privately held ESOP company in the data space in Europe and the Americas.
Brenda owns and operates a consulting firm Next Act Advisors, where she works with founders and owners on Enterprise value by identifying technological innovation out of the “lab” and bringing it into the mainstream. Next Act Advisors is a white glove advisory firm that serves entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs with disruptive technology including Healthcare Technology, Medical Devices, Clean Tech, and Enterprise SaaS. She served as interim CEO in 2020 for an enterprise SaaS company, MatchbookAI.
The focus of her work is growth strategy, capital allocation, operational levers, compliance, leadership / CEO coaching, and team build-outs.
With extensive global experience, she is at ease with disruptive business models in clean tech, Healthtech and enterprise SaaS as an independent thinker bringing strategic thinking to scale new business models with operational excellence and state of the art governance practices.
She is especially passionate about bringing good governance practices to the founders she works with and is the producer and host of The Founder’s Sandbox, a monthly podcast available on all mainstream platforms including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
