Stop Waiting To Be Invited Into The Boardroom - Meme Stokes Callnin

Meme Stokes Callnin had spent two decades inside global human capital consulting building talent strategies, advising on M&A integrations, and leading the Mountain States for Mercer across all things human capital. Then she went to a Harvard executive program on women in the boardroom. And everything shifted. She came back with a clear mission. 2024 was going to be her year. Then she hit the wall: her firm didn't allow paid board seats. Within months, the pieces fell into place. She raised her hand for a package, walked out, and entered what she calls her "rewirement." Today, Meme Stokes Callnin is an independent board director and growth strategist, sitting on the boards of Select Health, Wonderbound, and the American Heart Association's Colorado Go Red for Women campaign, which she chaired in 2024. She has helped raise over $1 million for the AHA, driven by a single realization at a breakfast back in 2018: women's heart attack symptoms are different from men's, and most women don't know it. In this episode of Inspiring Women, host Laurie McGraw sits down with Meme at the WBL Summit to trace the full arc, from corporate executive to professional board director, and unpack what it actually takes to land a seat in a room that doesn't post its openings. They discuss: The 2018 American Heart Association breakfast that pulled her in for good, and the survivor story that made her realize women's heart attack symptoms differ from men's, and that despite heart disease running in her family, she'd never been told Why women are dangerously underserved when it comes to CPR, and her blunt take: "I'd rather live than worry about a broken rib" The Harvard executive program that flipped the switch, and why "rewirement" is her word for what most people would call retirement Her honest read on the post-DEI slowdown in the boardroom, what's changed, what hasn't, and why advocacy for women still matters The "secret club" of board recruiting, why the big executive search firms won't place you on a public board until you've already got one, and what to do about it Her 5 Fs framework, Family, Financial, Fitness, Fun, Faith, and how she uses it to filter every meeting, every coffee, every yes Why she chose healthcare as her board focus, drawing on sandwich-generation experience and decades of consulting across the ecosystem Her core advice for women seeking their first board seat: be bold about what you know, make the direct ask, and raise your hand often Meme Stokes Callnin is proof that "rewirement" isn't slowing down. It's choosing, with intention, exactly what the next chapter looks like, and then asking for it out loud.