Lisa Edwards: President & COO of Diligent Corporation, a Leading GRC & ESG SaaS Provider

May 19, 2022

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0:00 Intro.

1:30 Start of interview

2:00 Lisa's "origin story". She grew up in Silicon Valley and after attending college at Stanford, she moved to Mexico City for 3 years where she worked in a boutique consulting firm. She later got an MBA at Harvard Business School. She then joined Bain & Co., became CEO of KnowledgeX (later sold to IBM) and co-founded ValuBond. She joined Visa in 2009, and Salesforce in 2012. In 2019, she joined the board of Colgate-Palmolive.

8:20 In October of 2020, she joined Diligent Corporation as President and COO, based in SF/Bay Area. "Diligent has about 70% of the Fortune 1000 companies as clients, and it's a truly global product." Diligent did four acquisitions during the pandemic, aggregating "governance, risk, compliance 'GRC' and ESG." "It's a $40 billion TAM, and we are the biggest SaaS player in the space." "It's a killer set of applications together."

13:45 Diligent Corporation got taken private by Insight Partners in 2016 (valuing the company at $624 million). "Now it's got to be one of the largest private SaaS companies."

15:05 On the evolution of technology and board portals in corporate boardrooms.

16:37 On the rise of ESG. "It's a very global trend." Examples from Australia, EU, UK, etc. On the SEC's approach with Chairman Gensler. Their global survey with Spencer Stuart, "finding 71% of boards are incorporating ESG into their company strategy, with 85% taking action to increase fluency on ESG." See Sustainability in the Spotlight: Board ESG Oversight and Strategy.

20:56 Her thoughts on the L.A. state court judge striking down SB-826 (AB-979 got struck down in April) and what these rulings mean for board diversity. "Globally, women now occupy 26% of board seats." "In California, women occupy 28% of board seats." "So it seems that SB-826 and AB-979 had a positive effect on diversity of boards."

26:41 On the recent push back by tech titans (Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, etc) on ESG, including the power of institutional investors from the likes of Larry Fink from BlackRock.

29:05 On dual-class share structures. "We [Diligent Corporation] don't have an official position on it."

31:32 On the rise of private markets and governance of private companies.

37:04 On the politicization of corporate governance. "It is a sea change, 10 years ago CEOs avoided commenting on any political issue."

39:05 On the looming recession, and what directors should be doing in this economic downturn. "Boards have dealt with crises before such as the dot com crisis in 2000 or the GFC in 2008, and it looks like we're hitting a new crisis." "It will disproportionally impact private companies."

41:41 On virtual board meetings. "The virtual board meeting is 100% here to stay, but not 100% of the time." "There is no substitute for looking at people in the eye, no substitute for the hallway conversations."

42:29 The 3 books that have greatly influenced her life:

River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard (2005)
The Power Broker, Robert Moses and the Fall of NY, by Robert Caro (1974)
I Will Bear Witness, by Victor Klemperer (1995)

43:09 - Who were your mentors, and what did you learn from them?

Her Dad.
The Bridge Group (women peers)

43.52 - Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by? "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

44:33 - An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves: Harvesting honey bees!

45:31 - The living person she most admires: RBG.

Lisa Edwards is President and Chief Operating Officer of Diligent Corporation, the leader in modern governance providing SaaS solutions across governance, risk, compliance and ESG with more than $500 million in revenue and a $7 billion company valuation.

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License