Caren Merrick on Women Worldwide

Caren Merrick, the founder and CEO of Pocket Mentor joins host Deirdre Breakenridge on Women Worldwide. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Caren was a partner at Bibury Partners, an angel investment and advisory firm. Earlier in her career she was co-founder and EVP of webMethods, leading the company to the most successful software IPO in 2000. Caren grew the company to 1,100 employees and $200m in revenue, which eventually led to its acquisition by SoftwareAG in 2007 for $540million.

On the show, Caren discusses her career journey and how she has served on different boards. According to The Gender Diversity Index, in 2015, of the 842 active companies on the Fortune 1,000 list, women held 18.8% of board seats. This is an increase from 17.7% in 2014. If you compare these stats to the 14.6% of board seats that were held by women in 2011, you can see the numbers are rising, but not high enough. According to Caren, too few women see themselves as participants in the boardroom and they aren’t stepping up by taking risks or taking on new projects. Lastly, Caren discusses her thoughts on reinvention and why it’s so important for professionals to invest in self-discovery. Professionals should know that change can be uncomfortable and you can’t force it.

A little more about Caren Merrick … Caren serves on the board of directors for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which manages and operates the $800m Washington Ronald Reagan National and Dulles International airports, serving over 40 million passengers a year. The Authority also manages the development of the $6B Dulles Corridor Silver Line Metrorail project. The boards on which she serves provide governance and oversight across multiple industries with a combined value of $10b.

You can connect with Caren on LinkedIn and Twitter @CDMerrick