Mary Barra’s hiring as General Motors’ CEO earlier this year was significant not just for the fact that she became the first female chief of a major automaker, but also because she took an atypical path to the top. In her more than three decades with GM (starting as an intern!), she worked in various executive roles across different functional areas—even those areas considered non-strategic. In 2009, a tough time for the firm, she…
From Wall Street to Main Street, organizations are striving to diversify their boards of directors. The belief is that trustees should reflect and represent the varied constituents they serve.
An irony of boards’ seeking to reflect their communities is that they often have to look outside these communities to find diverse trustees—whether diverse is defined by gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or other criteria. “This just gives them a much larger pool of potential candidates,” says…
Hospitals and health systems today are looking for high-powered, high-energy boards to help them deal with the seemingly unlimited challenges brought on by healthcare reform. They require healthcare trustees with exceptional talents and commitment. “Yet when it comes right down to it, healthcare is still about people and communities,” writes Charles W.B. Wardell III, Witt/Kieffer CEO, in the introductory note to this year’s…
By Jennifer Biehn, Consultant, Not-for-Profit Practice
Twitter certainly isn’t just for millennials anymore, and it isn’t just a social media. It’s a great professional platform upon which to build your brand and expand your network. To leverage Twitter for your career, however, you have to do it right, and well. Here are…
State university systems often comprise dozens of campuses, countless research arms, expansive health systems and medical schools, and hundreds of thousands of students and faculty. Within these “multiversities,” as some call them, leadership conflicts are inevitable, especially between flagship and satellite campuses.
They “are what mathematical modelers call complex systems,” writes Dan Fogel, Of Counsel in Witt/Kieffer’s Higher Education practice and the former president of the University…
Private-sector executives who make the leap into nonprofit leadership positions are often viewed with a jaundiced eye. Are they really committed to the not-for-profit world? Will they fit into a nonprofit’s culture? Will their for-profit ideals somehow tarnish their new organization’s mission?
These are legitimate questions, says Wayne Luke, managing partner of Witt/Kieffer’s Not-for-Profit practice, and yet in most cases the concerns are unfounded. Most “bridgers”—corporate executives switching…