>> From Phoenix, Arizona, theCUBE.
At Catalyst Conference, here's your host Jeff Frick.
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>> Hey Jeff Frick here with theCUBE.
We're in Phoenix, Arizona
at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference.
About 400 people.
The fourth year of the conference.
Really getting together, talking about women in tech issues.
Something in the water, here in Phoenix.
We were here two years ago at the Grace Hopper Celebration
of Women and Computing, also just down the road.
So we're happy to be here and really get a feel.
And bring to you some of the leaders here,
that are making things happen.
We're really excited by our next guest,
Coco Brown, the founder and CEO of the Alena Alliance,
or Athena Alliance, excuse me, welcome.
>> Thank you.
>> So the Athena Alliance, what's it all about?
>> Well so the Athena Alliance is an organization
of executive women who've achieved
great success in their careers.
And they have vision collectively of women operating
at their highest level of impact.
And within the context of a business leadership realm,
that highest level really is the boardroom.
And so our mission is to help women obtain board seats
and be successful in the role.
>> So there's a lot of conversations about board.
It seems to be kind of the new hot button topic
about inequality.
There's certainly ton of conversations about inequality
and pay highlighted recently by
the women's national soccer team, which got a lot of buzz.
And I think everyone knows that conversation
that's been going on for a while.
But the boardroom conversation is kind of new.
It's kind of bubbling up.
Or at least that's my sense of it,
that barely have cracked the surface
in terms of historical numbers
in getting women representation on boards.
>> Yeah.
>> Why does that continue to be a problem?
Is it a pipeline issue?
Is it a match making issue?
Is it a networking issue?
Is it just, I just don't know?
What is the issue?
>> It's not a pipeline issue.
And so what's happened in this discussion
is there were some, sort of, pretty notable examples
of situations where women raised their hands
and said, hey where are the women on these boards.
And the response was, well where are the women?
Which kind of created this energy around the topic
a lot more strongly more recently.
Which is to say, there are a lot of qualified women
out there who would be great board directors.
And yet the positions of board director
are gate kept by largely men.
This is just the circumstance.
Men are the ones who back companies.
They're their VCs, they're the founders, they're the CEOs.
And within their networks, they don't have a lot of women.
Executive women.
Likewise, executive women tend to seek each other out too.
So we're not in each other's realms.
So a lot of the conversation has been around
raising awareness to the issue.
There's been great tracking of exactly where is the issue.
And how are we making progress.
And then there's been a lot of great organizations
that have been helping women get ready for board positions,
training them.
And thirdly, there's a lot of great organizations out there
who are, essentially, identifying qualified women,
and cataloging them, putting them in data bases
and saying, hey no excuses, here they are.
But the key missing element
and my feeling as to why the problem continues to persist,
part of it is just time.
It's just going to take time.
But part of it is also, really networking, what you said.
It is about networking.
It is that the women who want these positions
and who are qualified for these positions
need to know the men who are looking for board directors.
And when you actually connect,
make those two connections happen,
you get incredible success.
And we're seeing it already.
>> Or as the age old advice, it's not who you know,
but who knows you.
>> Yes!
>> It used to always be the other way around.
But it's really who knows you.
And we live in such a time of personal branding
and external communication via LinkedIn, Twitter,
blogs, medium, however you choose to externalize
your professional position.
And it kind of gets intermingled
with your personal position.
There really is not much excuse, at least,
to make the attempt, to get yourself out there.
>> Exactly, it's why.
So there's 16 of the speakers here at this conference,
are Athena Alliance women.
And part of the reason we're here,
we're here because this is such a noble and important
and fantastic event for us to participate in.
The other reason we're here is because this is apart
of our way of getting known too, right.
Of becoming more visible.
Of making our brand, personal brand known.
So this is one of those key things about who knows you
that we should and need to be doing.
>> So how many Athena foundation women
are in executive boards now?
>> So Athena Alliance is relatively new.
So we're just getting started.
About 50% of, 47% of the women associated
with Athena Alliance are already on boards.
>> That's pretty good, 47%.
>> Yes, largely those are non-profit boards.
>> Okay.
>> They also are on a fair number of advisory boards.
And they're now looking for the private boards
and corporate boards
and they're looking for public boards as well.
>> And do you see that as kind of a logical stepping stone
between an advisory board, a non-profit board,
potentially a private company board, a VC company
and then to a larger public entity.
Is that kind of?
>> Yeah I see it two ways.
On the one hand, it's stepping stones
and on the other, we have a variety of careers.
So let's take me for example.
I ran and was an owner of a privately held company.
We reached about 50 million dollars in revenue
before I sold my ownership, moved on.
I'm qualified for a certain kind of a board.
I'm qualified for a private board
of a certain type of growth,
sort of trajectory or stage.
Others like Yvonne, who you spoke with,
she's qualified for public boards of a different size.
So some of it is what we're qualified for
and what we can really contribute to
and some of it is stepping stones.
So for example, advisory boards are a great stepping stone.
You get absolutely zero board credit
for being on an advisory board,
'cause it doesn't have fiduciary responsibilities.
>> No fiduciary responsibility. >> Right.
But it's incredible network experience.
It's a great way to get to know CEOs,
to get to know VCs, to make yourself known as a candidate
for other aspects of that company.
>> Where do you see the natural networking opportunities?
'Cause clearly there's networks that exist around
where you went to school.
There's networks around, increasingly alumni groups,
within companies, especially a big company like an Intel
or an HP, where you got these huge alumni groups,
'cause they've been around for so long.
Where are some of the other natural alumni groups
that then cross over that are going to allow
rubbing of shoulders with the old school guy board members
with some of these women that are trying to break through?
>> Yeah it's interesting.
I think that is a really good opportunity space
because I do see that mostly, the networking pods,
if you will, are within school alumni groups,
or corporate alumni groups,
or organizations that women belong to.
But that are largely then just women organizations.
Or maybe some industry organizations.
And industry boards are a great way to make
that connection point.
But I don't think that women do have opportunities
of overlap with men in those organizations
and those networking communities.
So the way it has to happen is,
I think we have to make it happen.
So it's almost like, creating mixers.
We need some mixers, right?
Male VCs mixed with Athena Alliance women.
Let's get together.
We actually have an event coming up like that.
Where you can have some men and women in the same room.
They get to get a sense of each other.
Those you do start seeing more of that going on
and it's kind of essential.
>> 'Cause you really need that right?
I mean, they are networks.
And everything going on today is all about networks,
whether it's IOT or social media or whatever.
It's networks and they're all naturally bound
by something but how do you get that overlap
from one network to the other
when there's not enough overlap
to really make the activity that you're seeking.
Of course, there's always CUBE alumni,
which is a terrific network.
So we'll use that as a founding point.
>> Absolutely.
Well and Dan Scholnick,
who is a general partner with Trinity,
he's on a number of boards.
He's speaking at an event for the Athena Alliance
on a panel coming up.
And he's got board openings in the variety of boards
that he's on.
Those are the kinds of connections.
Make opportunities for Dan to be in the same room
as a number of these great women.
I think we just have to create it.
>> It's interesting, interesting.
'Cause it is all about the connection, right.
You got to know people and you got to put the word out.
Nobody ever got a board seat sending out a resume.
I don't know.
How many come from executive head hunters?
I never got a job from executive head hunters.
It's really more about who you know.
>> And executive recruiters only actually fill
about one to two percent of board seats.
It's only the top companies with the deepest pockets
or the greatest pressure that can do that.
>> Okay so what are your priorities for the next six months,
nine months, what are your top things your guys
are working on at the Alliance?
>> So we're relatively new,
so big, big priority for us is funding.
We're also scaling.
So scaling is one of the important things.
In other words, scaling our relationships
with those VCs, with CEOs,
and starting to create great linkages
through these networking events.
>> All right, well Coco, thank you for taking a few minutes.
>> Thank you.
>> Absolutely and good luck with the Alliance.
It sounds like you guys are on your way.
We see increasingly, we did a show at SAP
in conjunction with MAKERS and they got a great movie
about some of the women who just broke down barriers
in advertising, fashion, finance, tech, et cetera.
Meg Whitman, among many women highlighted there.
And it's tough to break down that door.
When the first one gets through, hopefully they leave
a little space for somebody else to scooch in behind them.
>> Yeah, yeah. >> Absolutely.
All right, Jeff Frick here with Coco Brown.
We are the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference,
Phoenix, Arizona.
You're watching theCUBE.
See you next time.
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