Building Your Board Portfolio

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Most people assume board seats are handed out inside a closed network, the reward for a finished career rather than a vehicle you can build on purpose. Stacy Brown-Philpot is the counterexample.

Her operating credibility is not in question. She joined Google when it had roughly a thousand employees and was there as it grew to fifty thousand, founding the Black Googler Network in 2005 and running Hyderabad operations along the way. She became COO and then CEO of TaskRabbit and led the company through its acquisition by IKEA. But the more useful story is what she did alongside that job.

Before any opportunity existed, she turned her resume into a board bio, a distinct document built around what a board needs rather than what she had done. She sent it to everyone she knew, including sitting directors and the recruiters who place them, with a simple ask: if something crosses your desk that you cannot take, think of me. A mentor told her to aim for the biggest public company first, because once you sit on one, the rest consider you. When a contact passed her name to Meg Whitman during the HP split into two companies, twelve board seats opening at once, she was already prepared. She had read the skills matrix HP publishes in its annual report and knew the precise box she could fill.

The same mentor gave her one more instruction before the final interview: stay in your lane. Understand the specific reason they want you and show your strength there. She built the entire conversation around HP's actual need. Mid-process, her youngest started crying during a phone interview and she stopped the call, sure she had lost the seat. The board member told her she was exactly who they wanted, precisely because she lived the life of the customer they were trying to reach.

She held two public boards while running a company and raising kids, and she is clear it was not easy, only worth it. Today she is Founder and Managing Partner of Cherryrock Capital, the first Black woman-founded, multi-hundred-million-dollar venture firm focused on Black and Latine founders. It is the venture chapter she had planned for twenty-five years.

Three takeaways from the conversation

Turn your resume into a board bio, then seed it

Stacy's first move was a document. She turned her resume into a board bio, a distinct one-pager built around what a board needs rather than what she had done, and seeded it with everyone she knew, sitting directors and recruiters included. Her ask was simple: if something crosses your desk that you cannot take, think of me. The bio came before any opportunity existed.

Aim for the biggest public company first

A mentor told Stacy to target the largest public company she could, because once you sit on one major board, the smaller ones consider you. That is why she was ready when a contact passed her name to Meg Whitman during the HP split. She had read the skills matrix HP publishes in its annual report and knew the precise box she could fill.

Stay in your lane

Before the final interview, the same mentor told Stacy to stay in your lane: understand the specific reason they want you and show your strength there. Rather than try to prove range across the whole conversation, she built it entirely around HP's actual need, a read on the next generation of buyers. Filling one box completely is what got her the seat.

Watch the full conversation

About this guest

Stacy Brown-Philpot is Founder and Managing Partner of 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 acquisition by IKEA. Before TaskRabbit she spent nearly a decade at Google leading global operations. She has served on the boards of HP, Nordstrom, StockX, Noom, and Stanford University. She holds a BS in Economics from Wharton and an MBA from Stanford.

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