Instagram Live with Lana Cuthbertson
In another edition of Social Distance Learning Friday, we were joined by Lana Cuthbertson, the CEO and Founder of @aretolabs, a social enterprise startup that builds technology to make digital communities more positive and inclusive.
Lana's career has taken her from journalism to communications and marketing to product and program management, allowing her to build expertise in technology, digital communications, leadership, innovation, change and knowledge management and writing. She has worked in industries like technology, financial services, pharmaceuticals, post-secondary and nonprofit. She is a passionate advocate for gender equality. She created an A.I. based Twitter bot to encourage women in politics called @ParityBOT, which she has built and run in Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. so far. Finally, Lana co-founded and chaired @ParityYEG in 2018, and chaired the Alberta North chapter of Equal Voice from 2015 to 2017.
Lana and Chantel talked barriers to women in leadership and more. Here are our top 3 takeaways from Lana Cuthbertson:
In boards and politics, it all comes down to communication
“Being able to leverage those communication skills can make your impact in those leadership roles outsized and I think that’s really critical; and interpersonal communication skills too, being able to work with different personalities and people with different approaches especially these days, as the world becomes more divided, that’s a skill that's probably really rare and highly valuable in order just to make progress in both of these spaces” - Lana
Take the time to learn more about board governance
Lana finds it doesn’t matter if it's a nimble startup organization a more established one. She says, “just having that basic understanding of the philosophy of governance and the responsibility that comes with it has always been very helpful and I was lucky to learn that early”. The best part is, as Lana puts it, “it's not hard, people from all kinds of backgrounds can get a grasp of it quite easily”.
Do you ever ask yourself: how should I structure my board?
Lana describes the most critical piece to ask yourself when you’re thinking about what the kind of board you want is “what kind of organization are we building?” and “what do I hold sacred about what we want to achieve?”. Lana emphasizes, “part of me would want to make sure that, whoever is coming on board, is ready to be 100% totally and completely honest with us about their opinions on where we’re headed and where we’re going”.
Thank you so much to Lana Cuthbertson for taking the time to chat with us! Also, thank you to everyone who tuned in and participated with meaningful questions for our guest.
For those of you who want to hear more meaningful conversations such as this one - and we know you all do - make sure to follow us on Instagram @directhernetwork to get a chance to engage live in our latest Social Distance Learning instalment with more inspiring female leaders.