Calling All (Yep) UPWARD Men
Written By Lisa Lambert, UPWARD CEO & Founder
Spring is when we gather at the annual UPWARD dinner to raise money, raise our voices, and raise up the volunteers, sponsors, and trailbreakers who have helped create a little more opportunity for executive women. This year’s event took to place at the edge of the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve and the ranch of Lori and Florian Barth, the driving forces behind the real-estate investment firm Fox Creek Fund. Our host was Lisa Salters, the sideline reporter for NFL’s Monday Night Football and NBA games on ESPN.
“Women helping women. Women supporting women. Women networking with other women. What’s better than that?” she said as we kicked off the evening.
How about the start of something new and groundbreaking?
I am thrilled to announce the launch of UPWARD Men. As you read this post, we are actively working to build the first chapters in the United States to complement the hard work already done by UPWARD Women. Leading these new chapters will be senior-level men from various enterprise organizations, all with one goal: to support women leaders.
Here’s why it’s so important.
We face two realities. One is that, without any marketing, UPWARD is growing rapidly. We have nearly 6,000 members in 15 chapters around the world. We are adding new chapters this year in Bolivia, Dallas, and Denver.
But UPWARD also needs to get much bigger. Because the thing holding back executive women is that we don’t have access to the informal networks that help men advance. These networks are where deals get done, job offers floated, and promotions happen. Our lack of access to these networks – and to the men who mentor within them – results in what I call a triple net negative: we miss out on opportunities, we fail to expand our numbers in the senior ranks, and we are forced to compete with each other for the few jobs that remain.
So we’re going to build a bigger, richer, and deeper network of our own. We’re going to reach out to some special men to help. And if the testimonial of one of them at our dinner was any indication, it’s help they very much want to give.
Jim Goetz: “Time For A Change”
In my business of venture investing, we sometimes get a little fast and loose with praise; but in the case of Jim Goetz the superlatives are all earned. He has more than two decades of investing experience with some of the most iconic names in his portfolios, including GitHub, Palo Alto Networks, and WhatsApp. He sits on the boards of five companies, each work more than a billion dollars.
And he was wrong about something very important.
“I thought I was doing enough for women – I backed four founder CEOs who were female,” he said. “But it wasn’t until my daughters started to reach adolescence – and I have three spectacular daughters – that I started to realize I was not woke.”
Jim told the story of when his youngest daughter visited Sequoia Capital, a company he once led and now serves as a partner. She noticed all offices on the outside ring were occupied by partners – and in them were all men. Meanwhile, the people on the inside – those who supported the partners – were all women. She wasn’t happy about it and she let her father know in no uncertain terms.
“I realized that as one of the leaders at Sequoia that it was time for change,” he said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed that I grew up in a tech environment and wasn’t aware of what it was like through a woman’s eyes. And by only having daughters did I have the distinct advantage of feeling their pain, their challenges, and their environmental hurdles.”
These are hurdles women have experienced for some time. Despite more of us getting college degrees in the US than men, and comprising about half the country’s population, women occupy only 13% of executive positions and only 4-5% at the CEO level.
It’s why Jim turned to the men in the room and laid out a challenge. “If you’re not mentoring at least a few young women, you’re not doing enough,” he said. If you’re not campaigning to hire a few female executives or board members you’re not doing enough.”
I am grateful for Jim’s willingness to publicly proclaim what has to be done for professional women to achieve the equity we deserve. And I am convinced there are more like him who can provide that kind of support. Yes, UPWARD will still be a good ole’ girls network.
But these kinds of allies will always be welcome.
In addition to founding UPWARD, I am the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of National Grid, a multinational electricity and gas utility company and the Founder and President of National Grid Partners, the innovation and investment arm for National Grid. I also sit on the NVCA Board of Directors, where I am co-chair of the Venture Forward initiative. I was a Managing Partner at the Westly Group, responsible for investments in software, energy, and IOT and a Vice President at Intel Capital and the Managing Director of Intel Capital’s Software and Services Fund and the Intel Capital Diversity Fund.