Bunnies to Board Members: When Girls Join Boys' Clubs

I recently found myself diving from a stage at 1:00 am into a throng of dancing, cheering, mostly male entrepreneurs, hoping they would collectively catch me. Which they did! It reminded me of those trust-building exercises you do on corporate retreats, where you fall backwards and trust the person behind you will break your fall.  The significance of my dive, or leap - besides confirming I probably drank too much ouzo (the party took place in Athens, Greece) - was confirmation of how far I had come since I first joined this Entrepreneurs' Organization three years ago. Back then, I felt like a distant cousin popping in on a rowdy family reunion. I knew I wanted to join the Entrepreneurs' Organization (known as EO) because I too wanted to learn the secrets of running a successful business, but I certainly didn't feel like I was "one of them." Now I serve in a leadership position, and owe much of my success to mentors and friends I met in EO, I count many as good buddies, recruit women to join, and choose to spend much of my time when not being CEO/wife/mother with this still mainly male peer group. How did I go from Outsider to Stage Diver in a relatively short time? And what can companies, organizations, and venture capital/angel investors learn from women like me, as they try to make a place for more women in top leadership positions?

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