Karen Francis: "An Effective Lead Director Needs to Have Excellent EQ (Emotional Quotient)."

Welcome to the Boardroom Governance Podcast. I’m your host, Evan Epstein. In this episode, I talk with Karen Francis DeGolia, a Silicon Valley-based corporate director with deep domain knowledge in the automotive and advertising sectors. Karen currently serves as Chair of both Vontier, focused on mobility and transportation businesses, and CelLink, a leading manufacturer of High-conductance, large-area flexible circuits for automotive applications. She is deeply engaged in the mobility and transportation technology ecosystem as an independent director for Polestar, the electric vehicle brand spun off from Volvo, plus a number of private-equity and venture-capital funded companies in Silicon Valley. In this podcast, we talk about her career including her board journey in public, private, advisory, non-profit, and international company boards. We address trends from the automotive industry, SPACs, the separation of Chair and CEO roles, and the positive and negative connotations of ESG. We also talk about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and its impact in tech and the wine industry. Karen knows the latter sector well since she owns Limerick Lane Cellars, a winery located in Healdsburg, California. If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast on social media. You can find all the show notes on the website boardroom-governance.com and please feel free to subscribe to the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at evanepstein.substack.com