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Merline Saintil is a seasoned Silicon Valley executive with experience scaling award-winning products in Fortune 500 and privately held companies including Intuit, Yahoo, PayPal, Adobe, Joyent and Sun Microsystems. Merline currently serves on three public and three venture-backed unicorn boards and is a sought-after speaker. In her spare time, she enjoys coaching emerging leaders and advises companies on technology trends, innovation, strategy, cyber risks, digital transformation to name a few. Quoted in many major publications, including WSJ, Forbes, Fortune, CNET, CIO Review, CIO Journal, and Business Insider. Recognitions & certifications include: 2019 Most Influential Corporate Board Directors by Women’s Inc., Women of Influence 2017 by Silicon Valley Business Journal, Business Insider: #6 of the 22 Most Powerful Women Engineers in the World, Lifetime Achievement Award by Girls in Tech, Cybersecurity Oversight by NACD and the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute.
Rhonda Mims
Rhonda Mims is a Senior Executive, Strategic Adviser, and Reputation Management expert recognized for M&A integration, ESG and Public Affairs. She has led executive and strategic communications; change management for high profile companies, and diffused issues posing significant reputational, client, and revenue risk. Ms. Mims global perspective, ability to anticipate and navigate critical inflection points, and expertise delivering complex messages to broad audiences are hallmarks of her career. Most recently, Ms. Mims served as an Executive Vice President and Chief Public Affairs Officer for WellCare Health Plans, Inc., a Fortune 200 government-sponsored managed care company serving individuals through Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug Plans with revenues of $28B. WellCare was acquired by Centene Corporation (Fortune 42) in 2020. She managed WellCare’s corporate reputation including the financial and non-financial annual reporting, brand, and marketing, government affairs, public policy and corporate communications. Ms. Mims managed acquisition - integration communications and government relations for 5 acquisitions. Her efforts also secured the company’s designation as a Fortune Most Admired Company in 2018 and 2019. Mims continues to aid Centene with its integration of WellCare. She is currently leading the company’s strategic alliance and public affairs efforts based in the Washington, D.C. Office.In recognition of her leadership and expertise, Ms. Mims has received numerous honors including the Silver Anvil Award of Excellence from the Public Relations Society of America, CSR Executive of the Year from PR News, PR Council/Week’s Diversity Distinction Award, Women of Color STEM Corporate Responsibility Award, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s, Corporate Leader Award. She was named to Network Journal’s Top 25 Black Women in Business and SAVOY Magazine’s, Top 100 Blacks in Corporate America five times, most recently in 2020. She is also sought after by top-tier national media outlets for interviews and features on corporate responsibility and diversity at the board level.Ms. Mims earned a Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law and earlier a BSc. in Criminal Justice also from the University of South Carolina. She continued her education completing Deloitte Institute’s Next Generation CEO Academy and earned a Corporate Responsibility Certification from the University of California Berkeley, Executive Education Program.
Tonya Williams
Tonya Williams is an innovative strategist and public policy professional with extensive public and private sector experience. Born and raised in Greenville, North Carolina, she is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina School of Law. Following graduation, she spent a year and half backpacking around the world before accepting a judicial clerkship with the Honorable Loretta C. Biggs at the North Carolina Court of Appeals. After her clerkship, Tonya served as General Counsel to the President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina Senate for five years, developing and implementing the caucus’s political and legislative agenda before joining the executive management team at GlaxoSmithKline, as Director of IP Policy for North and South America. In 2008, she returned to public service and moved to Washington, DC where she worked as Chief of Staff to Congressman G.K. Butterfield at the U.S. House of Representatives until 2011, when she took a position at the White House, serving as the Director of Legislative Affairs for Vice President Joe Biden. In 2016, Tonya was appointed Vice President for Policy, Communications and Knowledge Analytics at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation where she led efforts to improve advocacy and outreach to state and national policymakers, and more effectively leverage over $400 million in annual funding and resources. Following her appointment at Kellogg, she joined the newly formed Global Government Affairs team at SoftBank, one of the world’s largest investors and operators in the technology sector. Recently, her role was expanded to include external outreach for Softbank’s new Opportunity Growth Fund – a $100m fund created to support founders of color in the emerging tech sector.
Janet Rollé
Janet Rollé is the General Manager at Parkwood Entertainment, founded by entertainer and entrepreneur, Beyoncé in 2010. Rollé leads Parkwood’s business operations and development, including strategic partnerships and investments, finance, human resources, legal & business affairs, information technology, and marketing. She manages the P&L across all company lines of business including music, video and live performance production, touring, artist management, ancillary businesses and digital. Rollé has over 25 years of business leadership experience, for some of the most beloved and enduring global consumer media brands. In October 2020, Rollé was appointed as the first female and first African-American Director of BuzzFeed, Inc. She is also the board’s first Independent Director. For the past 10 years, Rollé has served as a Director of Carver Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRV), one of the oldest and largest African-American managed banks in the US. She serves on the Compensation Committee and has been Chair of the Nominating & Governance Committee. During her tenure on the board, the bank raised $55 million in capital and completed a sale of its corporate headquarters in Harlem, under challenging market conditions and an intense regulatory environment. She is currently providing guidance to senior management and their agency partner on the introduction of a new line of products to grow core deposits and small business relationships. She is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and has completed advanced training through the American Bankers Association. Rollé also served for two terms on the Nominating Committee of the United States Tennis Association (USTA), where she led an effort to redesign and reimagine the board recruiting and evaluation process. During her tenure, the Nominating Committee appointed the first VP who would become the first African-American, first former professional tennis player and youngest-ever person to serve as President, Chairman and CEO of the USTA in its over 125-year history. Rollé also served as a Presidential Appointee, advising the board and USTA executive leadership on business development for the US Open. Rollé has also served on the Board of Directors for the Women’s Forum of NY, an invitation-only organization of high-achieving professional women, and the American Foundation for The University of the West Indie. Rollé was also sponsored by the prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz to attend the Directors’ College at Stanford University. Rollé has served as EVP & CMO for CNN Worldwide, overseeing the positioning and promotion of CNN’s multiple networks and services. Rollé earned her MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business, where she was the President of the Black Business Students Association. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance from the State University of New York at Purchase. She lives in New Rochelle, NY.
Coco Brown is a CEO and board member, actively leading Silicon Valley based professional services and tech companies since 1997. From 2002 to 2012 Coco was President and COO of Taos, a leader in IT professional and managed services servicing hundreds of F1000 and top tier private growth companies nationally. She was also on the board of Taos for 12 years, leading the company through massive economic cycles and business model evolution and growth. In 2016 Coco founded Athena Alliance, a digital platform for learning and agency for the top business women striving for the c-suite and the boardroom. Since founding, Athena has helped over 400 boards, and brought over 500 board interviews to women, supporting over 100 board matches. In 2019 Coco joined the board of ArcherPoint to which she brings her expertise in scaling and diversifying professional services, and from which she is learning a tremendous amount about holacracy and how to run an ESOP based company. Coco is a well published expert and speaker on The Modern Boardroom. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.