Even though everything is still virtual, I’m happy to be back and teaching another bright class of MBA students at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. This time around, discussing CEO and Board Leadership is especially interesting considering everything going on, from continuing to navigate the pandemic to new issues like diversity and inclusion, ESG, and the digital shift all taking precedence.
We had a roster of brilliant speakers Zoom in to share their words of wisdom, and they had a lot of great discussions with the class.
So far, we’ve had five days of classes featuring six speakers: Carol Mills, Mike Millegan, Jeff Rowe, Phyllis Campbell, Katherine Regnier, and Alex Shootman.
Carol Mills is a board member of Entertainment Partners, Zynga, and previously RELX, Adobe, Xactly, Blue Coat Systems, Ingram Micro, Alaska Communications, and WhiteHat Security.
Mike Millegan serves as an independent public board director for Portland General Electric (POR:NYSE) and Wireless Technology Group (WTT:NYSE). He is also the Founder-CEO of MAG3 and the former President of Verizon Global Wholesale.
Jeff Rowe has 10+ years of experience as the CEO of Premera Blue Cross. As an exceptionally articulate CEO, Jeff answered a lot of questions about navigating the pandemic with his board and spoke to concerns regarding healthcare companies.
Phyllis Campbell is the Chairman, Pacific Northwest for JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Co., and is currently on the board for Alaska Airlines, the Diversity Advisory Board (DAB) of Toyota, the global advisory board of Women Corporate Directors (WCD), and she is the chair-elect of the US-Japan Council. Previously, she was President/CEO of The Seattle Foundation, President/CEO of U.S. Bank of Washington, and she has served on the board of directors for Nordstrom and PATH.
Katherine Regnier is the Founder and CEO of a Canadian-based Enterprise Software Company, Coconut Software. She is a board member of Co.Labs, UW Foster School of Business, and previously Business and Professional Women of Saskatoon Inc.
Alex Shootman is the CEO of Workfront and the author of Done Right: How Tomorrow's Top Leaders Get Stuff Done. Prior, he was the COO of Apptio and Eloqua, and he played an integral part in bringing Eloqua to a successful public offering, which led to the acquisition by Oracle (NYSE: ORCL).
A major theme that all of the speakers touched on had to do with how board member responsibilities have changed and evolved since the pandemic has hit. Along with all of the standard things that boards have to address—revenue, stocks, evaluations of the CEO and the board itself, yearly plans, quarterly reviews, and more—the last few years, and especially in this COVID-19 environment, have raised many more duties to worry about as a director.
Board members now have to consider employee wellness, engagement, returning to work, company culture, directing steps toward the company’s digital shift and transformation, ESG, and more. The board is responsible for ensuring that the company is doing things by the rule and in the best interests of everyone involved.
The students also learned about how different experience levels are necessary for every kind of board seat—public and private companies, non-profits, and billion-dollar foundations. Having various skill sets and diverse ages, genders, and backgrounds on boards introduce innovative ideas that help with analyzing complicated issues. The most accomplished boards are open to change and willing to listen to challenging ideas.
This MBA class was unique because there were several healthcare executives and students going into healthcare, so there were many specific questions focused on that. With so much uncertainty in the air right now in this pandemic environment, Jeff Rowe had a lot of knowledge to share in this area.
Having years of experience as the CEO of Premera Blue Cross and having handpicked his board, Jeff answered questions about how his team navigated COVID-19 as a healthcare company. He discussed how his board made all the difference and how having cooperative and helpful directors were instrumental during this 14–15 month time.
I always take great pleasure in teaching this class at UW, and the students are always so engaged—despite conversations happening through a computer screen. A big thank you goes to each of the speakers who shared such valuable information with these future board members! The students take so much away from each presentation, and you can’t learn this kind of material from reading it in a textbook.
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