theBoardlist

theBoardlist was a curated talent marketplace connecting women who had been endorsed for board service with companies and investors searching for directors. It launched in July 2015 as the first initiative of the #ChoosePossibility Project, founded by Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, and started with just over 600 women endorsed by 50 investors and chief executives from the technology industry. Its distinguishing mechanism was peer recommendation rather than application: leaders in the community nominated women they knew to be board-ready, and companies then searched the resulting pool. The model attracted early attention from national press, including the New York Times, USA Today and CNN Money, and drew endorsements from well-known technology chief executives. By November 2017 the platform reported that more than 1,400 executives had nominated more than 2,100 women and that it had influenced more than 100 board placements; its own homepage described a community of more than 5,000 recommended female candidates by 2020. Three groups used the site: candidates, who could complete a profile and connect a LinkedIn account; companies, searching for directors; and recommenders, who identified talent. The platform's website ceased operating in 2026 and the domain is now parked.

How it works

Recommenders - chief executives, investors and senior leaders in the community - nominated women they considered ready for board service. Nominated candidates completed a profile and could connect a LinkedIn account to be discovered. Companies with open board seats searched the pool and connected with candidates directly. Because entry depended on nomination rather than self-application, theBoardlist functioned as a search-and-endorsement platform rather than a members' club with events or forums.

Typical member

Senior women executives nominated by chief executives, investors and other business leaders for board service. Candidates did not self-nominate: entry to the talent pool came through peer endorsement by a recommender in theBoardlist's community.

theBoardlist is worth recording precisely because it was not a membership network in the usual sense: there were no dues to compare, no chapters, no events, and no self-application route. Its selectivity came entirely from the nomination mechanism, which is also its main structural weakness - the pool could only be as broad as the recommenders' own networks, which in the early years were heavily concentrated in Silicon Valley technology. The platform's fee model was never published in the pages that survive, so it is not possible to say what companies or candidates paid. The practical point for researchers is that the site is now gone: profiles, the candidate pool and the placement claims are no longer verifiable, and the placement figures cited here come from the platform's own claims as reported in secondary sources rather than from independent confirmation.

Editorial analysis by Peer Group Guide editors. It is separated from the record above and follows the editorial policy.