“Ongoing succession planning is a critical responsibility of any board, and our Nominating/Governance Committee, led by Larraine Segil, has focused intensively on that task over the past several years,” said Mr. Rosenblum. “Through the committee’s effective leadership, we are pleased to announced that Dr. Taylor, who has made many important contributions to NACD So Cal over the years, has been appointed chapter president; M. Christian Mitchell, long-time NACD So Cal member and my predecessor as chapter chairman, is now chair emeritus.”

He also explained that three experienced corporate directors—Dr. Karen S. Bogart, Kim L. Hunter, and Lester M. Sussman—have joined the board, in addition to the retirement of Joan Herman.

“We are grateful to all of these great leaders for their outstanding contributions and willingness to take on new responsibilities,” Mr. Rosenblum said. “And we also congratulate Joan Herman on her recent retirement and years of service to our chapter.”

Dr. Taylor commented, “It is a great honor to be elected to serve as NACD So Cal chapter president. I thank David Rosenblum and Chris Mitchell for their leadership over the past few years, as well as Dann Angeloff and Robert Rollo, both chairmen emeritus, for paving the way. Our chapter’s success would not have been possible without them.”

NACD So Cal Leadership

Dr. Taylor, who joined the NACD So Cal Board in 2012, succeeds Mr. Rosenblum as chapter president. He is chairman of The Creighton Group, a network of business professionals and corporate directors who seek to enhance corporate governance by encouraging independent corporate directors to more effectively monitor the “tone-at-the-bottom” risks. He also serves on the board of trustees of Claremont Graduate University (including the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management) and on the corporate advisory board of Novaria Aerospace, Inc.

Mr. Rosenblum succeeds Mr. Mitchell as chapter chairman. He is a member of the board of directors of Hanmi Financial and its subsidiary Hanmi Bank. Until his retirement in May 2013, he was a senior leader and board member of Deloitte Consulting LLP.

As chair emeritus of NACD So Cal, Mr. Mitchell also continues in his leadership role on the NACD National Board of Directors.

NACD So Cal also announced the appointments of Dr. Bogart, Ms. Hunter, and Mr. Sussman to its board of directors.

2017 Corporate Directors Symposium

As NACD So Cal’s signature annual event, CDS provides NACD members the opportunity to meet with experts and board colleagues from throughout the West. This year’s theme explores today’s turbulent times and the impact of steady board leadership in navigating challenges.

Early bird registration for Navigating in Chaotic Times: Board Leadership Matters is available through September 30, 2017.

Fall 2017 Events Calendar

In addition to CDS, NACD So Cal’s fall 2017 events calendar includes:

Leadership Strategies With Debra Reed and Rafael Pastor
Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Fireside Chat With Bonnie Hill and Chris Wing
Thursday, October 19, 2017

Five Questions Board Directors Should Be Asking
Thursday, November 30, 2017

Event information and registration is available at southerncalifornia.nacdonline.org/events

Please note, NACD So Cal events are for members only. For membership information, please visit southerncalifornia.nacdonline.org/Membership/national.cfm?ItemNumber=5017

Southern California Chapter of the NACD
The Southern California Chapter of NACD was chartered by NACD in 1978 to enhance corporate governance in the Southern California region. The NACD So Cal Chapter provides local educational and networking opportunities for individuals who serve as directors of corporations and business organizations from all industries, public and private, profit and nonprofit. Our vision is to prepare members for effective board of director roles and foster the positive image of corporations and business organizations through improved corporate governance. The principal emphasis of the NACD So Cal Chapter and its events is to provide vital information and education to current NACD members and their guests. To learn more about the NACD So Cal Chapter, visit southerncalifornia.nacdonline.org

Contact:
Moira Conlon, President
Financial Profiles, Inc.
310-478-2700
mconlon@finprofiles.com

Latina Leaders in the Boardroom

NACD SoCal Event Recap
Latina Leaders in the Boardroom

Larraine Segil, Dorene Dominguez, Aida Alvarez

NACD Southern California held a lunch meeting on Wednesday, September 7^th, 2016 at The California Club in downtown Los Angeles. During the lunch, Larraine Segil moderated a discussion with two dynamic Latina leaders talking about diversity and success in the board room. Aida Alvarez, Chairman of the Latino Community Foundation, and Dorene Dominguez, Chairman of the Vanir Group of Companies, provided insight on corporate growth in California and tips on how to take advantage of economic opportunities in a diverse community.

Aida has been an award-winning journalist, a successful investment banker, and a member of President Clinton’s Cabinet. She currently serves on the boards of Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HPQ, Oportun and Zoosk and chairs the Latino Community Foundation. Dorene, inheriting Vanir Construction from her father, now oversees 24 offices throughout the United States, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. Dominguez also founded The Vanir Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to partnering with elementary schools in selected Vanir service areas to bring innovative programs to children in underserved communities.

The following are 10 key takeaways from their discussion:

1)     Diversity brings new and different perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds, allowing you to better meet the needs of your markets. Dorene highlighted that the buying power for the Latino market, for one, is $1.2 trillion, so the absence of having a Latino on your board could be devastating. Ultimately, you want the board to look like your customers. If you want to be better and attack those markets, diversity is the key to success.

2)     With that said, Aida noted, “each person brings certain experience and expertise that has to be of value to the board, irrespective of whether they are man, woman, Hispanic, Caucasian, or something else.” In order to be a good leader and a successful board member, you must constantly be learning new things and meeting new people. “If you are not uncomfortable, you are not learning,” Alvarez also stated.

3)     You have to be willing to talk about failure and how to get through that failure. You shouldn’t be afraid of who you are or your experiences, these are what make you unique and of value.

4)     A lot of being a successful board member is also about the relationships you develop and how well you can work with other board members. Knowing how to respect each other, even when coming from different perspectives, and how to appreciate what the other person is trying to accomplish, even though that may not have been where you originally intended to go, is crucial.

5)     Social responsibility is now more important than ever in corporate America. “It makes a difference just because it makes good business; regulation is one thing but good business stands,” stated Larraine. Today, increasing shareholder profits are based on social responsibility and companies that do not have a social agenda see profit loss.

6)     Company culture is another significant consideration when running a business or sitting on a board. About 72% of employees in America are disengaged from their jobs which is costing companies about half a trillion dollars a year in productivity and profitability. Having good company culture and high retention rates are directly correlated with profits. Giving employees a sense of appreciation, connection, and engagement is very good for morale and in turn, great for the bottom line.

7)     Creating positive company culture is a role directors can help play as customer and employee retention is one of their key responsibilities. Millennials are more interested in social responsibility, company culture, and quality of life than in profits and if you do not change with the trends, your retention rates, specifically of millennials, will significantly narrow and your bottom line will suffer.

8)     Learn how to work with a team and where your strengths lie. Being a successful board member is a very delicate balance of having the courage to speak up but also the ability to fit in.

9)     The biggest area Latinos in particular could grow in is financial experience. Being a good leader is important but being a good leader who can deliver results is where real success lies.

10)  The women closed with some advice to those either aspiring to be on a board or for those already in seats. A lot of it is about relationships that you develop, so you should be doing as much association work as possible in your industry to build your network. You must go out and create context and build credibility.

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By SABLE Staff

Larraine Segil has quietly become one of the most influential Women Thought Leaders ever to hail from South Africa – and has shaped the growth of Fortune 500 companies as one of America’s leading gurus on business alliances.

And her success also highlights – and unearths – an equally little-known family legacy of inspiration and pride which South Africans can finally celebrate: from the world’s first successful head separation of Siamese twins, to the global founding of the breast cancer “Wear It Pink” movement, to a World War I fighter pilot ace who also co-founded South Africa’s furniture industry.

Segil is a past Chair of the Committee of 200 Foundation and past Vice Chair of the Governing Board, whose member companies generate some $1.4 trillion in revenues.

Now joining the Advisory Board of the SABLE Accelerator, Segil is a former CEO and serial entrepreneur who has shared her knowledge with literally tens of thousands of US executives, and dozens of Fortune 1000 companies, over the past three decades.

And she began her American business career selling dental equipment in a telemarketing job.

Segil has since built up a resume of truly astonishing diversity: from pioneering achievements in law and healthcare to business leadership, aerospace innovation – and urban farming, in which she makes her own cheeses and chutneys.

Women entrepreneurs who have benefited from Larraine Segil Scholarships are forging pioneering careers, and, as of this year, one 9th grade Johannesburg school girl annually will be funded and guided by this global mentor.

She is also a fiction novelist and even the composer and voice artist on successful children’s music CDs.

But Segil’s extraordinary influence on America’s business leaders stems from her roles as a business lecturer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California for a quarter century; as a blue chip key note speaker; as a leader of numerous professional bodies; and as Emeritus Partner of the elite business consultancy Vantage Partners – which grew from the precepts of the iconic Bible on negotiating, “Getting to Yes.”

In an interview with SABLE, Segil says her diverse experience in law and in numerous entrepreneurial fields led directly to the broad clamor for her knowledge as an alliance consultant: “My longest period in a C-suite position was with The Lared Group and Vantage Partners, LLC – that’s where I developed my reputation. I took the executive expertise of those companies and organizations which came before, and I codified them into a methodology that I could teach to others and advise at the C-level. My teaching at Caltech, all the books; the videos and keynotes, all of that happened during the time span with Lared and Vantage.”

In addition to her work of fiction, Segil is the author of six seminal business books, including “Intelligent Business Alliances’ (Random House); ‘Fast Alliances: Power Your E-Business’ (John Wiley); ‘Dynamic Leader, Adaptive Organization (John Wiley), and ‘Partnering –The New Face of Leadership’ (A Compilation -AMACOM). Her most recent book, “Measuring the Value of Partnering,” (AMACOM 2005), was the first on Alliance Metrics.

While it’s true that Segil began her extraordinary US career from a telemarketing booth in the 1970s, her drive and work ethic have some serious roots.

Her grandfather, Harry Cohen, was a cabinetmaker in London, who joined the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, before emigrating to South Africa and establishing a pioneering bedroom furniture business. Segil says he created South Africa’s first large scale furniture factory – as well as lifestyle innovations like its first Walnut veneer – and essentially founded its first trade and bargaining organization. Cohen later helped redirect the energies of the country’s furniture factories for the benefit of Allied forces in World War II.

She says: “As a businesswoman, I was inspired by my grandfather – and I’m grateful the family has such a pedigree as adventurers and pioneers.”

In 1968, her father, Dr Jack Wolfowitz, led the second surgical team ever to successfully separate twins joined at the head, and the first conjoined females – in an historic procedure in South Africa which she says “was somewhat upstaged in the news by Chris Barnard’s heart transplant around the same time.”

Although he discouraged her from following him into medicine, Segil says her father and mother Norma helped her believe that she could achieve anything else she chose. She attended Kingsmead College in Johannesburg, as a contemporary and friend of Margaret Marshall, who would go on to become the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and the first American judge to grant gay couples the right to marry.

Segil notes: “Justice Marshall is so erudite, thoughtful and accomplished; a sterling role-model for young women in South Africa and here in the USA.”

And she, too, studied law at Wits University – only to leave South Africa, and her long LLB studies, just four months from graduation, having opted to support her new husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr Clive Segil, in their emigration to the US.

She recalls: “That was tough – Leaving my LLB so close to the finish line was a bitter pill – but it also hardened my resolve to quickly pass the bar in California.”

Studying law at night while working and also caring for her new baby son by day, Segil achieved her JD from Southwestern Law School in rapid time – “it was brutal,” she chuckles – and went on to practice as a litigator for an Los Angeles firm for two years.

Segil remains a devoted supporter (and member of the Board of Trustees) of Southwestern and has established an endowment there for female students who walk the road ‘less traveled.’

“Law wasn’t a fit for me – litigation is dissecting the past; whereas my focus is on collaborating for the future; I realized I was much more emotionally and intellectually suited to building businesses and alliances.”

Segil obtained an MBA from the Presidential Key Executive Program at Pepperdine University – “a spectacular experience; probably the best thing I’ve ever done in my education.”

Having co-founded a financial services company, Segil then joined forces with her husband in pioneering a new healthcare model – establishing one of America’s very first airport urgent care clinics, near Burbank  airport.

“It was a thrill to develop the business plan for that clinic – the concept of a 24/7 airport urgent care facility was brand new.  Major business nodes were growing rapidly around airports – with business parks and warehousing – and accidents happen. At the time, people needing care had to travel all the way to major medical centers for help. It was a great success, but later we realized that it had taken over our lives.”

So Segil  became Co- CEO, of an advanced materials distribution company serving the global aerospace and electronics industries.

Her customers would include aerospace and electronics companies  (Lockheed, Hughes) as well as the governments of many countries (France, Israel). In 1987, she founded The Lared Group, which she says was the first strategic alliances consultancy – and brought in partner Emilio Fontana. They went on to advise numerous Fortune 1000 CEOs including  game changers like George Fisher, former CEO Motorola and Kodak, and Renee James, President of Intel.

Largely on the strength of Segil’s pioneering work on the methodology and metrics of collaboration, Lared was later acquired by Vantage Partners, LLC – the iconic firm founded by the Harvard co-authors of “Getting to Yes,” which sold three million copies and transformed the global mindset on effective negotiation.

All the while, she taught a course to senior executives on strategic alliances – unbroken, for 24 years – at Caltech.

Segil told SABLE that one common failing she had noted was that “Most companies tended to jump straight into negotiating a contract, before sufficient analysis of whether this is the right partnering opportunity; or whether the priority level of the alliance in terms of resource deployment is the same for the company and its  potential partner; or how it would fit culturally. We helped them to create a more effective approach to partnering, sharing a process, creating metrics to measure the value of their partnering, and critically important, enabling buying and resolving conflict. Many leading companies were doing great things, but needed to create a sustainable approach for creating, managing and increasing value in alliances over time. Partners could also be customers or suppliers. Kraft, for instance, undertook a project to become a world class partner with their top suppliers.” Clients included companies such as Reuters, IBM, Microsoft, McDonalds, Disney, Chevron, Cisco, Blue Cross and Blue Shield and many more.

Meanwhile – across the Atlantic – Segil’s sister, Pamela Goldberg, was building a now globally famous movement, entitled “Wear It Pink,” as  Chief Executive of Britain’s Breast Cancer Campaign. Goldberg recently received an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II – having boosted the charity’s funding from just 107 000 pounds (GBP) in 1997 to 40 million pounds when she retired in 2011.

In addition to her new scholarships for 9th grade girls at Kingsmead College in Johannesburg, Segil has established two endowments for extraordinary women professionals in the US: at Southwestern, and at Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Management.

One Larraine Segil Scholar, Dr Mehrnaz Hadian, is an intensive care physician from Iran at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after obtaining her fellowship from Harvard Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston. Hadian recognized the need to  earn a JD from Southwestern to understand the legal framework as an enabler to make intensive care units more efficient and responsive in the US – and Segil recognized, in Hadian, a potential pioneer.

Of her mentees in general, she has written: “The women who have earned these awards are stars in different ways – each of them has special attributes and have evidenced interest in Strategic Alliances and relationships of collaboration. They will be mentored by me for my lifetime. My mission is that their relationships and those with the two women and one high school girl each year who are added to the group in perpetuity, will outlast my lifetime as they pay it forward to each other and future generations of women leaders.”

Segil has served on a dazzling array of industry boards – starting with her selection as US representative on a 45-country international bar association of young lawyers, AIJA.

Her board experiences range from decades of service to the Cedars Sinai Medical Center and the Entrepreneurs Board for the Price Center at UCLA to the Golf 2.0 Business Women’s Council for the PGA and the WHO (World Health Organization) Tropical Diseases Special Advisory Group – and, of course, the vastly influential Committee of 200.

She has a simple maxim, which she shares with the Segil Scholars whom she mentors: “If you’re going to join an association, make it your business to lead it.”

She told SABLE: “This is not about ego – it’s about making a difference.”

Now, in the digital and social media age, Segil says “alliances are happening faster” – and that wise companies are seeking to partner with disruptive upstarts in their markets.

She said the current outreach to US-based financial technology entrepreneurs by South African financial services investment giant RMB/ RMI Holdings – profiled this week on SABLE – “is a great example of smart thinking around disruptors.”

Given her knowledge and networks, it’s fair to say that Segil could well have become a world famous business tycoon or politician today.

Instead – in selling her stake in Vantage in 2007 – she chose a balanced life, and fidelity to the same principles which triggered her legal studies sacrifice in the 1970s, and her switch away from her intensive role in healthcare, aerospace and professional services: to become a devoted grandmother; to inspire countless other innovators; and to launch yet another enterprise in a wildly different field – The Little Farm Company.

Extraordinarily, this global Thought Leader is now literally making jams and organic cheeses for local customers; yes, even the fruit chutneys which so many South Africans in the diaspora miss in the US. And she is turning this small urban farm into a mentorship opportunity for youngsters – and her unique aptitude for optimized alliances now extends to the earth itself.

For Larraine, it is a life of full circle relationships – from the pioneering spirit of her family in South Africa to her success passed on now through innovative mentoring relationships in the USA, “all based on a love of family, the environment and country.”

Larraine Segil ’79 had always attended the most prestigious schools when living in South Africa. But when she and her husband immigrated to the United States, even the outstanding education she received at University of the Witwatersrand did little to prepare her for figuring out how to continue her education and build a career in Los Angeles as a working mother without resources and guidance.

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