Advisor, Investor, Speaker
Merline Saintil, a force of goodness, defines herself more broadly than her work, always folding her heart around what is right and fair. When she's not executive producing a documentary for a film premiere, or cheering in the stands at a Stanford Women's Soccer game, Merline is devoted to one of her many other passions, several of which are outlined here.
AS SEEN IN
Leading a delegation at the ringing of the Nasdaq opening bell in New York City in February 2022
Corporate Board Director
Merline is the Lead Director of Rocket Lab, a space exploration leader. Her role at this public company is a distinction held by only a handful of Black women in the world. She also serves on the board of Fortune 50 company TD Synnex as well as GitLab and Symbotic, two of the five IPOs that she’s led. She has served as the chair of all committees on both public and venture-backed boards except for audit and in 2021 was named Most Influential Black Corporate Director.
With fellow investor and panelist John Utendahl, Chair of Bank of America Corporate & Investment Banking.
Early Stage Investor
Merline is a long-time angel investor, helping fuel the early success of more than 40 innovative startups and is now expanding further by starting a $50 million fund. She enjoys advising CEOs and founders and in 2022 Fortune celebrated the scope of her influence by naming her one of the Most Powerful Women in business.
Panelist at Fortune's Most Powerful Women conference in California in October 2022.
Inspiring Keynote Speaker
From her humble beginnings in Haiti, she would stumble upon computer science in college and later discover a passion for both product and technology. She earned a Carnegie Mellon master's degree and ultimately became a Silicon Valley COO. "The trajectory of my career and lift in one generation is improbable," she says, "but it's not impossible." She authors a monthly newsletter, Lifting As We Climb, in which she interviews leading minds and has meaningful conversations with her friends and colleagues (VCs, CEOs, board members, founders, CXOs, and more) focused on a centralized theme around leadership principles.
With Mallun Yen, founder of Operator Collective and board member at Pure Storage and KQED; and Tekedra Mawakana, Co-CEO of Waymo and board member at Intuit, in San Francisco in October 2022.
Innovation Thought Leader
Name a 2022 LinkedIn Top Voices in Leadership, as one of the Top 10 voices to follow in the U.S., Merline’s perspectives on technology trends, innovation, strategy, cyber risk, and digital transformation have been widely recognized by major media including The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, CIO Journal, CIO Review, CNET and Business Insider.
With friend Robin Washington, co-founder of BWOB and board director at Salesforce, Alphabet and Honeywell.
Global Nonprofit Founder
In 2020, Merline co-founded Black Women on Boards (BWOB), a global organization of now 200+ executives, to remove the invisible obstacles Black female executives face when pursuing public company board service. Members are on the boards of Fortune 500 & pre-IPO companies as well as women looking and ready for their first board roles. As of Fall 2022, BWOB has placed 28 board members, all of them making an impact that will extend for generations to come.
With Yvonne Wassenaar, Board Director at Forrester, Rubrik, JFrog, and Arista Networks.
Enterprise Tech Executive
Intuit, Yahoo!, PayPal, Adobe, Joyent and Sun Microsystems are among the iconic Fortune 500 and private companies Merline has successfully helped scale through various stages of rapid growth. She’s led product development teams in global digital transformations for B2B and B2C companies, as well as executing M&A integrations and divestitures.