20 women in finance you should add to your company's board

Business Insider

Companies make all kinds of excuses to not bring women onto the team, from a broken pipeline to not wanting to "lower" their standards.

Finding women to add to a company's board is even harder since the job listings aren't posted publicly and advertised widely to attract a diverse network, says Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CEO of Joyus and founder of theBoardlist. 

"When a board seat opens, the typical process is that a CEO will turn to their few, most trusted peers for recommendations of potential board members, who in turn give recommendations of their few, most trusted peers," Singh Cassidy told Business Insider.

"Because our closest networks are usually very similar to ourselves, this process doesn't necessarily yield a lot of diversity — not only of gender or race, but educational background, functional expertise or industry. While there may be no intent to actively exclude any group, this lack of diversity in networks means that opportunities aren't exposed to a broader pool of talent."

She started theBoardlist, a LinkedIn-like network that specifically recommends highly-qualified women in tech to take seats on company boards, to abolish any excuse that there aren't highly-qualified women able to join a company's board.

Here's the list of the 20 of the top women in finance and what expertise each woman can add to a startup:

20. Mindy Mount

Current role: Board member at Technicolor and The Learning Care Group

Experience: Mount cut her teeth leading mergers and acquisitions for Morgan Stanley. Mount then worked at Time Warner, AOL UK, and Microsoft, where she served as CFO for both its Online Services division and Entertainment and Device division. Most recently, Mount was president of Jawbone, where she stayed for nine months before leaving in 2014. Since then, she's divided her time on two boards, as well as serving on the audit committee for the University of Wisconsin Foundation, her alma mater.

Find her on: LinkedIn 

19. Melissa Birge

Most recent role: Former CFO at Kayak

Experience: Birge is currently a board member and chair of the audit committee at Showroomprive.com, a French fashion and technology company. She was most recently CFO of Kayak until February 2016. Prior to her time at the travel company, she also spent three years as VP of Finance at Potbelly Sandwich Works.

Find her on: LinkedIn

18. Julie Bradley

Most recent role: Former CFO at TripAdvisor

Experience: Currently a board member at WayFair and Blue Apron, Bradley left TripAdvisor after four years in November 2015. She has also previously served as CFO of Art Technology Group and VP of Finance at Akamai Technologies. Prior to Akamai, Bradley spent over seven years at Deloitte & Touche. 

Find her on: LinkedIn