OpenView Joins theBoardlist to Bring Gender Diversity to the Boardroom

Between 75 and 78 percent of privately-funded tech company boards do not have a female director, a statistic OpenView and theBoardlist are together hoping to change

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by || 12/21/2016

Boston – Today, OpenView, the expansion stage VC, announced its partnership with theBoardlist, a curated marketplace for female board candidates. The announcement marks a significant investment by OpenView to ensure its goals around diversity are met over the next two years.

The firm’s diversity goals stem from OpenView’s participation in the National Center for Women & Information Technology’s Pacesetters program, which requires that members set specific, quantifiable and aggressive goals spanning two years. Upon joining, OpenView laid out the following goals:

  • One-quarter of all on-site interviews for technical roles are women
  • One-third of all of on-site interviews for sales roles are women
  • Half of all of potential board seat introductions are women

Today, six months into their membership, OpenView is on or above target for hiring, but is far from meeting its goals around board diversity. Women comprise only 19% of all board seat introductions made by OpenView to its portfolio companies over the last six months.

“Gender diversity at every rank and stage of a company’s life leads to greater performance,” says Devon McDonald, a Partner at OpenView heading up the firm’s diversity efforts. “By joining theBoardlist and acknowledging our shortcomings publicly as well as setting real, quantifiable goals around diversity, we believe we can truly move the needle. Hopefully the steps we have taken and continue to take will not only help OpenView create a more diverse workforce and portfolio, but inspire other VCs and tech companies to set and publish their own goals.”

You can learn more about how OpenView plans to leverage theBoardList and NCWIT to meet its diversity targets here.

About OpenView

OpenView, the expansion stage venture firm, helps build software companies into market leaders. Through our Expansion Platform, we help companies hire the best talent, acquire and retain the right customers and partner with industry leaders so they can dominate their markets. Our focus on the expansion stage makes us uniquely suited to provide truly tailored operational support to our portfolio companies. Learn more about OpenView at openviewpartners.com.

About theBoardlist

theBoardlist is a curated talent marketplace for business leaders to recommend, discover and connect highly qualified women with private and public board opportunities at scale. To learn more visit www.theBoardlist.com.

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Media Contact:

Gail Axelrod
OpenView
[email protected]