Lilia Shirman of the Athena Alliance will kick us off and discuss her organization and the resources and services it provides with respect to women on boards.  Then Alexa King, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at FireEye and director at Vocera Communications will tell us about her journey as a female director and her work with Athena Alliance, following which we will open it up for discussion. 

Many thanks to Elizabeth McCarthy, Deputy General Counsel at Avaya, for hosting and Christina Pearson, Corporate Partner at Pillsbury Winthrop, for organizing.

Below please find some additional information about our speakers:

Athena Alliance

Athena Alliance is revolutionizing leadership, from senior management to the boardroom. We enable businesses to take on today’s greatest threats and to conquer their most pressing imperatives. And, we empower women to own their value and to step into their most ambitious leadership role yet: in the boardroom, in the C-suite, as a founder, or as an investor. At the heart of our mission: coaching remarkable senior women leaders to fully own their value and to step into bigger roles. We also guide CEOs, venture firms and corporations to evolve their approach to senior leadership development, to strengthen their boards, and to facilitate curated connections to remarkable female leaders. Learn more at www.AthenaAlliance.org.  

Lilia Shirman 

Lilia volunteers as the Athena Alliance Regional EVP for Silicon Valley and San Francisco.  During her 25 years leading and advising strategy, operations, marketing, and business development organizations,  Lilia Shirman has driven revenue growth at brand leaders including Applied Materials, BEA Systems, VMware, and Amazon, and helped innovative startups like MariaDB and Mindjet build enterprise value.  As CEO at The Shirman Group, she helps technology-enamored companies become more relevant to businesses and the humans who run them. As an angel investor and a Managing Director at Golden Seeds, Lilia has backed such success stories as ZineOne (Gartner’s 2018 Cool Vendor), and Cadenza, the leader in safer, more efficient energy storage.  Ms. Shirman is the author of 42 Rules for Growing Enterprise Revenue, and coaches entrepreneurs in Stanford University’s Global Entrepreneurial Marketing Program and around the world.

Alexa King

Heading up the FireEye legal, stock administration and privacy teams, Alexa is Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. Before FireEye, Alexa was Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of Aruba Networks, Inc., a provider of enterprise wireless networks. Her early career included working at Siebel Systems, and Fenwick & West. Alexa has served on the board of directors of Vocera Communications, Inc. since July 2016. Additionally, she served as founding director of Pathbrite, Inc. (formerly known as RippleSend, Inc.) from 2008 to 2009 and as advisor from 2009 to 2011. Alexa graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in Eastern European Studies and received her J.D. from the UC Berkeley School of Law, where she was named to the Order of the Coif.

Alexa is a Pioneer Member of Athena. Pioneers are women who hold a board seat at a public company or multiple large private companies, and are a core part of the Athena community, providing mentoring and connections to our Aspiring Directors, and gaining access to a broad range of powerful connections and opportunities themselves.