Men Who Open Doors are our heroes – leaders who believe in the power of women and people with diverse backgrounds, and invested in empowering them as leaders and innovators through thoughts, words and actions.
Since 2018, we have honored these men in a monthly panel discussion, as part of the FountainBlue When She Speaks series, inducting 3-5 male sponsors every year into the ‘Men Who Open Doors’ hall of fame. Below is a list of our inductees with links to our notes from our programs.
We provide ongoing support of our community of men opening doors by:
- running an annual program to honor selected sponsors;
- sharing notes, articles and best practices from our sponsoring executives;
- coaching selected sponsored professionals and their teams on selected milestones and projects;
- providing advisory services for established or new mentorship programs;
- profiling male and female executives throughout the year in our Front Line Managers, When She Speaks and VIP Roundtable programs; and
- facilitating strategic discussions on how to support and align business, process and people objectives.
For more information about the program or to nominate your sponsoring executive, e-mail us at info@whenshespeaks.com.
Please join us in thanking our male sponsors, our nominating professionals and our community of sponsors, partners, and attendees.
Sixth Annual: Men Who Open Doors Panel
Friday, December 8, 11:50 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Online with link sent to registered attendees
The *MeToo and other women’s movements before it have broken new ground for women at all levels of the workplace. Much progress will continue to be made with the groundswell of enthusiastic, passionate and powerful women now fully outraged and engaged.
But it’s the MEN-who-open-doors who will help accelerate the pace of change for the women’s movement. This month, we celebrate these types of men, and applaud their efforts to open doors to more women, and a merit-based workplace in general. This month’s discussion will feature a light roasting of the panelist by a nominating representative.
- Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
Men Who Open Doors:
- Marc Farber, Senior Director, Cisco Managed Services, Cisco
- Zachary Logan, Head of Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Coupa
- Colm Lysaght, Vice President Corporate Strategy, Hitachi Vantara
- Ravi Ravichandran, Senior Director, ISV Technology Adviser, Salesforce
This program also features a light roasting and introduction by our nominating executives:
- Heather Felts, Director, Cisco Managed Services, Cisco
- Kristi Gay, Engineering Training & Education Sr. Manager, Coupa Software
- Shveta Miglani, Head of People Strategy and Experience, Micron
This annual event inducts sponsoring male executives into FountainBlue’s Men Who Open Doors hall of fame.
Fifth Annual: Men Who Open Doors Panel
Friday, December 9, 11:50 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Online, hosted by Reputation
- Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
- Introductory remarks by Lauren Larson Diehl, Vice President Global Customer Success, Reputation
Men Who Open Doors:
- Ravi Chandra, SVP, Engineering, Cisco
- Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO, Stack Overflow
- Michael Erisman, Chief People Officer, Reputation
- Michael Gialis, Managing Director, KPMG
- Gerald Miaille, Vice President Of Engineering, Renesas
- Stefano Zanella, VP of Product Marketing, TDK
This program also featured a light roasting and introduction by our nominating executives:
- Pooja Agrawal, Director Firmware & Software, Wireless Charging, Renesas
- Courtney Rainville, Director of Customer Success, Reputation
- Sabitha Krishnamurthy, Senior Director, Cisco
- Debbie Shotwell, Chief People and Culture Officer, Stack Overflow
FountainBlue’s December 10, 2021 Men Who Open Doors program featured:
- Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
Men Who Open Doors:
- Jun (Alex) Gao, Head of Digital Health Lab, Samsung Research America
- Michael van Keulen, Chief Procurement Officer, Coupa Software
- Adrian Wilson, President and General Manager, Nova Measuring Instruments
- Jonathan Wormwood, Product Manager, Lam Research
This program also featured a light roasting and introduction by our nominating executives:
- Keren Keisari Hayun, U.S. HR Director, Nova Measuring Instruments
- Louise Lamb, Senior Director, Real Estate & Workplace Operations, Coupa Software
- Kerry Perryman, HRBP, Samsung Research America
- Shazia Tarannum, Pilot Program Manager, Lam Research
Men Who Open Doors 2020 Reunion
For our Men-Who-Open-Doors reunion meeting in December 2020, we’ve asked the following questions:
- Why do you open doors for others?
- What are the benefits for doing so?
- What are your plans for doing so better next year?
- What resource and support do you need to amplify the impact?
Notes from the meeting were uploaded to our blog and included in the January 2021 newsletter.
December 11, 2020: Men Who Open Doors Honorees
- Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
- Panelist Chris Allexandre, Senior Vice President & Executive, Renesas
- Panelist Ronald Goossens, Senior Director of Marketing, ASML
- Panelist Gabe Perez, VP Coupa West Sales, Coupa Software
- Panelist Sajid Sadi, Vice President of Research, Head – Think Tank Team, Samsung
- Panelist Nathan Sheranian, Senior Director Human Resources, Freshworks
- with opening remarks provided by Sheryl Chamberlain, Director Alliances, Coupa Software, Board Chair Coupa Empower
December 13, 2019: Men Who Open Doors Panelists
- Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue; Director, Vonzos Partners
- Panelist Dr. Benjamin Cook, Sr. Director, Nanotechnology – Kilby Labs, CTO Organization, Texas Instruments
- Panelist JD Dillon, Vice President of Marketing, Enphase Energy
- Panelist Martin Jessen, VP Learning Solutions North America, Schneider Electric
- Panelist Mike Snell, Vice President of Operations, Global Operations, Lam Research
- Panelist Jon Woolvine, Distinguished Engineer, Director Information Technology, Cisco
- with opening remarks provided by Rajni Dharmarajan, Product Line General Manager, Texas Instruments
May 11, 2018: Men Who Open Doors Panelists
- Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
- Panelist Ash Chowdappa, VP & GM, Aruba Wireless LAN at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
- Panelist Michael Dickman, VP, Product Line Management, Aruba HPE
- Panelist Gopal Kumarappan, VP Software Engineering, AppDynamics
- Panelist Jatinder Narang, Senior Director – Finance, Western Digital
- Panelist Ganesh Srinivasan, General Manager, Power Management, Texas Instruments
- with an introduction by Janice Le, Chief Marketing Officer, Aruba HPE
For more information about nominations for our December 10, 2021 program, e-mail us at info@whenshespeaks.com.