Every experienced executive thinks they're qualified to serve on a board. Boards are looking for something specific. In this session, Robin shares what she's learned from over a decade of board service at Salesforce, Alphabet, and Honeywell: what "board-ready" actually means, how to signal readiness while still employed, how compensation and time commitment really work, and how to sequence your first, second, and third seats. Whether you're five years out or actively pursuing roles now, this is the bar you'll be measured against.
What Makes Operators Board-Ready
ROBIN WASHINGTON
Board Director, President, COO & CFO of Salesforce
Robin Washington is President and Chief Operating & Financial Officer at Salesforce, where she leads business strategy, global finance, and operations. She served on the Salesforce board since 2013—including as Lead Independent Director from 2022 to 2025—and currently serves on the boards of Alphabet and Honeywell International. Previously, Robin was EVP & CFO at Gilead Sciences and CFO at Hyperion Solutions. She holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University.
Building Your Board Portfolio
Board seats don't come from cold outreach. They come from intentional positioning over time. In this session, Stacy breaks down the real path to paid board roles: how recruitment actually works, where to start if you've never served, and how to build from advisory roles to public company seats. Drawing from her own journey to the boards of HP, Nordstrom, StockX, and more, she'll share how to get in the room and what to do once you're there.
STACY BROWN-PHILPOT
Managing Partner, Cherryrock Capital
Stacy Brown-Philpot is Founder and Managing Partner at Cherryrock Capital, the first Black woman-founded, multi-hundred-million-dollar venture firm focused on Black and Latine founders. She is the former CEO of TaskRabbit, where she led the company's global expansion and successful acquisition by IKEA. Before TaskRabbit, Stacy spent nearly a decade at Google leading global operations and served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Google Ventures. She currently serves on the boards of HP, Nordstrom, Noom, StockX, and Stanford University. Stacy holds a B.S. in Economics from Wharton and an M.B.A. from Stanford.
Advising Private Companies: Turning Experience into Leverage
Advisory roles are one of the most overlooked paths to ownership in startups—if you understand how founders actually grant trust and equity. In this fireside chat, Nait Jones and Anthony Brown break down how advisory relationships actually form, what founders look for when offering equity, and how advisors can create outsized value without overstepping. Attendees will learn how to position themselves to get paid to advise, negotiate equity intelligently, and build long-term upside through trusted founder relationships.
NAIT JONES
Founder, Investor, Advisor
Nait Jones is a multi-time founder and operator with deep experience advising high-growth startups. Formerly an investor at Andreessen Horowitz, Nait has worked alongside founders at critical inflection points, helping them navigate strategy, capital, and scale. He is known for translating institutional insight into practical guidance that creates leverage for both founders and advisors.
ANTHONY BROWN
Co-founder & Co-CEO, Breakr
Anthony “Tony” Brown is the Co-CEO and co-founder of Breakr, a fintech platform powering agentic creator infrastructure for leading brands and agencies. Breakr serves hundreds of enterprise clients across CPG, music, podcast advertising, and publishing, with $9M raised, 70,000+ creators onboarded, and a patented escrow system built for trust at scale.
Playing with House Money: Running a PE-Backed Company
Private equity firms don't just buy companies. They need operators to run them. For the right executive, that's a path to CEO without putting up your own capital. Kenny Gardner spent over a decade at DaVita, rising from senior P&L leader managing $1.5 billion in operations to Chief People Officer overseeing 65,000 employees. In late 2024, he made the jump to CEO of Veritas Veterinary Partners, a PE-backed platform in the animal health space. In this session, Kenny shares how the transition actually works: how PE firms identify and recruit operators, what the interview process looks like, how compensation and equity are structured, and what changes when you're accountable to investors with a specific return timeline. If "CEO without the founder risk" sounds interesting, this is how it happens.
KENNY GARDNER
CEO, Veritas Veterinary Partners
Kenny Gardner is CEO of Veritas Veterinary Partners. Former Chief People Officer at DaVita Kidney Care, where he developed talent strategy for 65,000+ employees globally. Previously spent nine years as a senior P&L owner at DaVita, managing $1.5 billion in operations across clinical delivery, value-based care, and diagnostics. Started his career in investment banking at Morgan Stanley in M&A. Stanford GSB (Arbuckle Leadership Fellow), Florida A&M (BS, honors).
The Fractional Path: Turning Expertise Into Flexible Income
Sherika Ekpo spent two decades building an executive career—Google, White House, CFPB, and ultimately CHRO at Anaplan. Then she stepped away and built something different: a fractional executive practice that lets her serve multiple clients, set her own terms, and still have time to launch a franchise on the side. In this session, Sherika breaks down how fractional work actually functions—and why it's not the same as consulting. She'll explain the difference between being behind the scenes and being on the website, how to structure a portfolio of clients without overloading your plate, how to convert consulting engagements into ongoing retainers, and how to price yourself when you're lending your name, not just your time. If you've been curious about going fractional but don't know where to start, this is the operating manual from someone running the model right now.
Sherika Ekpo
Fractional CHRO & Franchise Owner
Sherika Ekpo is a fractional CHRO and founder of Sherika Ekpo Enterprises. Former Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Diversity Officer at Anaplan. Previously held roles at Google, the White House, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Department of Homeland Security. Howard University undergrad, MBA. Sherika is also the founding franchisee of Pecan Jack's Ice Cream & Candy Kitchen in Atlanta.