Janine Yancey: "Boards Have To Address Social Issues"

Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

1. Intro.
2. (1:12) - Start of interview
3. (1:54) - Janine's "origin story."
4. (2:25) - Her path from law school to plaintiff litigation work, representing and training employers, and the founding of Emtrain.
5. (5:40) - Her thoughts on lawyers transitioning to entrepreneurship, and her personal story with Emtrain: "I had this day job that was pretty directionally consistent with what I wanted to do in a technology aided fashion." "It was a big deal when I quit my day job in 2006 and all of a sudden there were five of us employed by Emtrain."
6. (7:02) - "The real transitioning point was in 2016-2017, after watching the SF trial of Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins (2015), that seemed to me a seminal point. The beginning of harassment law as we know it began with another huge SF trial, the Baker Mackenzie case (1994). I watched both trials so I thought this would become another inflection point."
7. (7:40) - I predicted the #MeToo movement in an article that I published on Medium. "Women everywhere are going to be so upset. The law is not an adequate channel to address these issues in real time, and social media is going to become the avenue to bring more accountability."
8. (8:20) - "This is when I decided to take some outside capital for Emtrain." Her vision of Emtrain, and their new technology approach with predictive analytics and benchmarks.
9. (13:03) - How technology has impacted her business offerings. Scaling from a one-dimensional compliance training program to two-way communication and multi-stakeholder engagement.
10. (15:03) - Impact and take-aways from Emtrain's 2021 Workplace Culture Report (based on 20 million employee responses on workplace).
11. (18:44) - Her take on the impact of COVID-19 and WFH policies in the workplace: "We have to be more intentional in virtual settings." We will have to navigate the "in-group / out-group" challenges and dynamics.
12. (21:16) - The role of the board on ethics, respect and inclusion. "Laws follow people, people don't follow laws." "Younger generations are social justice warriors." Reputation impacts the corporate brand.
13. (24:33) - The impact of ESG in her industry. "We are a tool in the tool chest to support and manage the corporate brand and how they're perceived by stakeholders."
14. (27:23) - Her thoughts on the BRT 2019 restatement of corporate purpose and the rise of employee activism.
15. (31:02) - Her take on corporate boardroom diversity. "If Theranos would've had any woman on its board, maybe she would've called b*%&t on Elizabeth Holmes". "Different people see different things." "What about the Purdue case, the social consequences are huge." "Compiling diversity metrics is a start, but that's like crawling. Where we need to go is understanding the KPIs and dynamics to reach a better trajectory."
16. (38:19) - How she came up with the framework used by Emtrain. It's all about organizational behavior. Her take on the difference between US and European corporate approach to social issues.
17. (40:48) - Her take on the recent exodus of people and companies from SF/Bay Area/CA and why she thinks CA will be fine.
18. (44:23) - Her favorite books:
    1. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (1957)
    2. Sci-fi and fantasy books.
19. (47:13) - Her mentors: "I unfortunately was late in the game on having mentors" Recently I've connected with some great advisors:
    1. Frits Habermann, ex CTO of Lynda.com (acquired by LinkedIn)
    2. Steve Roop, formerly with Glassdoor.
20. (48:52) - Her favorite quote: "Our strengths are our weaknesses and our weaknesses are our strengths"
21. (49:33) - Her "unusual habit": I twirl my hair when I'm thinking! She loves reading ("that's what winds me down")
22. (50:24) - The living person she most admires right now: Bill Gates.
23. (52:45) - Her parting thoughts for directors on how to deal with social issues: "Every board member should think about their ethics, respect and inclusion as part of their reputation. They need to start operationalizing these matters within the organization."

Janine Yancey is the Founder & CEO of Emtrain, a California based online workplace culture platform that helps companies diagnose, benchmark and prevent bad workplace culture outcomes. Prior to founding Emtrain, Janine was a partner at Employment Law Partners where she specialized in solving labor and employment problems for high tech firms including Google, Intuit and a variety of start-ups. Janine also worked as counsel at Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, served as Board Member of the Northern California Human Resources Association, and authored The HR Handbook, designed to help young tech companies navigate workplace laws.

Janine earned her JD at University of California Hastings School of Law and a BA in English and Political Science at the University of California Berkeley.

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Twitter @evanepstein

Substack https://evanepstein.substack.com/

Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

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X: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License