Erin Essenmacher

Sitting board director at the New Community Transformation Fund and The Future Directors Institute; Former board director at Eileen Fisher & Docs in Progress; Former NACD President Erin is a C-suite leader, award-winning storyteller, strategic advisor, and board member with a proven talent for synthesizing complex issues, market trends, emerging ideas, and stakeholder perspectives to create visionary and results-focused strategies. She has advised boards and management teams on oversight of strategy and risk and is a frequent speaker and writer on a range of issues related to the modern leadership and the future of the boardroom.

Gail Marcus

Sitting board director at Natera, binx health, and Cambridge Epigenetix Gail is a seasoned healthcare executive and board chair with experience leading a broad range of companies from microcap to the F100. An expert in risk oversight, she brings an in-depth understanding of the complex U.S. healthcare environment and strong financial and operational leadership experience.

Britt Ide

Sitting board director at Atlis Motor Vehicles, NorthWestern Energy & Technosylva Britt is an experienced public and private company director whose executive career (CEO, CSO, CLO) spans diverse industries and operations (engineering, M&A, manufacturing, distribution, HR, IT, marketing, sales). She is adept at transforming traditional industries for the future, bringing innovative tech to scale and helping boards navigate issues around ESG. She is a longtime and sought-after Athena coach supporting women on their journey to the boardroom.

Christine Heckart

Sitting board director at Contentful, SiTime & Next Generation Director's Academy; Founder & CEO at Xapa World Christine has experience on both sides of the board table as a CEO and board director. She has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry as CEO, GM, president, and CMO in industries that include entertainment, SaaS, data analytics, security, networking, and storage. She is an expert in strategy and market transitions and has led transformation in high growth markets. Christine was recently named one of the Fifty Most Powerful Women in Technology by the National Diversity Council and a 2016 Woman of Influence by Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Rochelle Campbell

Expert in governance, diversity, and board recruitment; Sitting board director at the Private Directors Association & CEO of Leadership Elevated Rochelle is an accomplished operations executive, board recruiter, and thought leader focusing on governance, policy, D&I, and board succession planning. Rochelle led the board search practice for the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), where she placed more than a dozen board members on with a focus on placing diverse candidates on PE-backed and public company boards. In her role she both worked with boards to successfully place new directors and advised dozens of candidates on board readiness, interview prep, and how to craft a compelling value proposition. As CEO of Leadership Elevated, Rochelle advises boards on leading governance and board composition practices.

Coco Brown

Sitting board director at ArcherPoint; Former board director at Taos; Founder & CEO at Athena Alliance Coco is a founder, CEO, and board member in investor-backed, private companies, SaaS, and professional/managed services. She’s served on 10 boards providing guidance around M&A, divestiture, audit, CEO succession and compensation, corporate strategy, and more. A recognized thought leader on the modern boardroom, Coco was named to the inaugural list of Silicon Valley’s top 100 Power Players by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Cate Goethals

Certified leadership coach (PCC, CHIC) with a focus on propelling women to the boardroom, Professor at the University of Washington Foster School of Business Cate Goethals has inspired hundreds of leaders to unleash their personal and professional power, working with brands from Amazon and Autodesk to Boeing and the United States Postal Service. Through her work Cate has helped high-level executives understand both what it takes to sit on a board and they unique value they bring to the boardroom. A former journalist, corporate communications specialist who holds an MFA in creative writing, Cate understands the power of storytelling and centers this in her coaching practice.

Carol Coughlin

Sitting board director at HopeBridge, Inc., GoodCap Pharmaceuticals, Inc., University of Maryland Medical Center, Trusty.care & CEO of Bottom Line Growth Strategies. Carol is an accomplished healthcare CFO with a track record of achieving profitability through growth, highly successful turnarounds, and M&A. An experienced public company board leader, certified financial expert, and audit committee chair, Carol is highly skilled in corporate governance including board refreshment, strategic alternatives, and M&A for growth and highly regulated companies.

Chelsea Grayson

Sitting board director at Morphe, Exponential Fitness, Vireo Health; CEO at Spark Networks. Chelsea is an experienced CEO, corporate board member, and advisor to public and private companies. She served as General Counsel of American Apparel and has served in three CEO roles including at American Apparel, True Religion, and now Spark Networks. She has served on boards across industries and is an expert in crisis, turnaround, corporate culture, strategy and brand.

Nora Denzel

Sitting board director at Norton LifeLock, AMD and SUSE Linux. Former board member of Ericsson, Redbox, Saba and Overland Storage Nora built her career as a Silicon Valley technology Executive (HP, IBM, Legato and Intuit). She has served on dozens of non-profit, private, advisory and public-company boards, including multinationals based in Spain, Germany and Sweden. She currently serves as the Lead Independent Director of AMD, chairs the compensation committee at SUSE and serves on the technology committees of both Norton Lifelock and AMD. As a board member, her functional expertise is applying technology to transform companies, achieving innovation at scale, and turning technical concepts into narratives and strategies everyone can understand.

Paula Cholmondeley

Sitting board director at Terex Corporation, Bank of the Ozarks & CEO of the Sorrel Group. Paula is a seasoned corporate director and designated financial expert with a strong profit and loss background. She has served on 10 public company boards across industries and sectors and has chaired every major committee. Paula has expertise in oversight of strategy and risk, board dynamics, expansion into global and emerging markets, and succession planning.

Jessica Lau

Expert in public company board search; Principal of the Ransom Group Jessica has spent nearly a decade as a search professional working across all facets of the process to place dozens of board members and C-suite leaders. Prior to her role at The Ransom Group, Jessica spent more than five years at Heidrick & Struggles, where she focused on board and CEO searches across the Fortune 500.

Jeannie Diefenderfer

Sitting director Irth Solutions, DigitalBridge, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees. Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Former CEO Higher Ambition Leadership Alliance. Jeannie has served more than a dozen boards in the public, private and university space and has gained a reputation as a business leader who turns the challenges of modern corporations into profitable opportunities, in part with a focus on customers as a competitive advantage. She has nearly 30 years operating experience in technical and operational roles including at Verizon Communications, where as Senior Vice President of Global Engineering & Planning, she led the implementation of over $10 billion in capital to expand Verizon’s global backbone network across six continents.

Mary Beth Vitale

Sitting director GEHA, Luna Innovations, Inc.; Former CEO Westwind Media. Mary Beth is former media and technology executive and SEC Audit Committee Qualified Financial Expert (QFE) who has served on nearly a dozen corporate boards, both public and private. She has chaired every major committee across her board portfolio and currently chairs the Risk and Technology Committee at GEHA, Inc. Previously she also served as Lead Independent Director at Eye-Ris, Inc and chairs the board of Women Corporate Directors.  Mary Beth is recognized for her expertise in oversight of technology and cyber risk.  Her governance experience includes taking a public company through a restatement, NASDAQ de-listing, restructuring and ultimate sale and overseeing the replacement of four CEO's to ensure preservation of shareholder value.

Shelly Lombard

Sitting board member for Craft 1861/Nano Cures and Alpha Metallurgical Resources; Former board director at Bed Bath & Beyond, Alaska Communications, & INNOVATE; LP investor in Brain Trust Fund. Shelly spent 30+ years on Wall Street investing in the debt and equity of companies, which gives her a unique perspective in the boardroom. Her specialties include  evaluating companies' financials in order to assess financial health, balance sheet management, and leveraging the capital markets and investor relations to maximize value for stakeholders. Her familiarity with the public markets and how investors value securities give her a strong lens on how companies think about long-term value creation.  Her board work spans early stage companies to the F500.

Anna Catalano

Sitting director HF Sinclair Corporation, Frontdoor, Ecovyst, and Hexion, Inc. Anna C. Catalano manages an active board portfolio, serving as an independent director for public and private corporations and not-for-profit organizations. She is a Director of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), Corporate Directors Institute, and Chair of the NACD Texas TriCities Chapter. She is Co-Founder of The World Innovation Network and has significant experience in the not-for-profit sector having served as a board member of the Alzheimer’s Association and the Houston Grand Opera. With over 40 years of corporate experience including over two decades of service on public boards, Ms. Catalano is an expert on the topics of board governance and leadership, and an outspoken champion of women in business.

Andrea Bonime-Blanc

Sitting board director at Cyber Future Foundation, NACD New Jersey Chapter, Epic Theatre Ensemble, Athena Alliance & Wirex Systems; Founder & CEO at GEC Risk Advisory LLC Andrea is a strategic governance, risk, ESG, tech, ethics and cyber advisor to business, NGOs, and government. A former senior global corporate executive (Bertelsmann, Verint, PSEG), she serves on several boards and advisory boards. She is Independent Ethics Advisor to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, Independent ESG & Integrity Advisor to the Platform for Social Impact and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.