Former CEO and now corporate board member Debra Lee recalled a conversation she had years ago, when she was asked to join the board of a popular beauty brand. The chief executive of the brand at the time saw her at an event, called her attractive, and said he wanted her on the board. She took him up on it. There were only two other women on the board of directors at the time and Lee quipped that it was older white men passing around lipsticks, trying to decipher the shade.
Lee, formerly chief executive at Black Entertainment Television, now serves on the boards of Marriott, Procter & Gamble, and Warner Bros. Discovery and founded Leading Women Defined and cofounded the Monarchs Collective. She shared this memory and others about joining her first board and sometimes being the only woman or Black woman in the room at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif. on Monday. She was joined by two other board members and a board search consultant who discussed the ways boards have evolved, and how they’re continuing to transform to oversee companies and hire and fire CEOs the current era.
