Michelle Collins, president of the financial advisory services firm Cambium, is one of six women on the 12-member board of directors at Ulta Beauty.
Michelle Collins’ first experience on a corporate board felt like a box-checking exercise. Woman: check. Black woman: double check.
A young banker, Collins felt her opinions were politely ignored by her fellow board members, all white men. She got so frustrated with what she thought was poor decision-making over a leadership succession plan that she resigned in the middle of her term.
“You’re there, you’re not sure how they're going to value you, and they really just didn’t,” Collins, 58, recalled of her five years on the chemical company’s board.
Twenty years later, Collins has become selective about the boards she joins. She looks for companies with strong female leadership, where diversity doesn’t feel like a numbers game but rather a natural consequence of seeking the best talent. She is, for example, one of six women on the 12-member board of Ulta Beauty, where she says diversity is “in our DNA.”
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