Penny Herscher: "The Chair of the Board has to Exercise Leadership by Listening rather than by Speaking."

Welcome to the Boardroom Governance Podcast. I’m your host, Evan Epstein. In this episode, I talk with Penny Herscher, a Silicon Valley-based tech executive and corporate director. Before transitioning to full time board work, she was the CEO of tech firms Simplex and FirstRain having previously served in firms such as Cadence, Synopis, Daisy Systems and Texas Instruments. Penny has served on several public and private company boards including Rambus, Pros and Verint, and is currently the Chair of the Board of Lumentum, Embark Trucks and Smart Global. She also serves as a director at Delphix, ModernHealth and French-based automated technology group Forvia. In this podcast, we talk about her career including her experience serving on public, private and international boards. We address several corporate governance hot topics including distinctions between serving in private venture backed boards vs. public boards, founder control and dual class share structures, separation of Chair and CEO positions, and the role of the board in strategy and innovation. We also talk about ESG, geopolitics and board diversity, among many other relevant topics for corporate directors. 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