The firm is hosting an event at the Waltham office with The Boston Club featuring a panel discussion focusing on opportunities for women to be involved with private company boards, including WilmerHale partner Rosemary Reilly. The Boston Club is a local organization of senior executive and professional women committed to developing, promoting and recognizing women leaders.

Corporations listed on the world’s stock exchanges are the primary focus of researchers, institutional investors and shareholder activists, as well as those who work to expand leadership opportunities for accomplished women.

And yet the majority of companies that comprise the backbone of the Massachusetts economy, as they do in most other states, are not publicly held and controlled. These companies include those that are publicly held but privately controlled by families and investment firms, as well as privately held firms such as ESOPs, family enterprises, equity owned middle market or angel-backed start-ups, and other non-public companies. In fact, at least 60% of the companies that The Boston Club’s Corporate Board Committee has successfully assisted in recruiting board candidates since 2005 have been privately-held. All of these businesses have boards of directors, and they often seek to include some independent voices in their boardrooms. The benefits and burdens of service on the boards of these companies - indeed the general nature of the board experience - may differ significantly from those at public companies, and also among categories of non-public companies. And so may the qualities and skill-sets that non-public companies seek in board candidates.

This board education program will introduce potential board candidates to the kinds of opportunities that may be available to them in the non-public sector, explore what privately-held companies are looking for in directors, assist candidates in assessing their own suitability for such boards, and provide useful information about how best to go about seeking those positions.

Panelists include WilmerHale partner Rosemary Reilly, Doug Baumoel with Continuity, LLC, Charles Cameron with Hub Angels Investment Group, LLC, Stephen P. Magowan with Steiker, Fischer, Edwards & Greenapple and moderator Toni G. Wolfman with Bentley University.

Please contact Savannah Rose at +1 617 526 5608 or at [email protected] to register.