LEADERSHIP
Betsy Berkhemer-Credaire How a Former PR Pro Impacted a National Movement M EGA N JOR DA N
After observing the low numbers of women on corporate boards for decades, Betsy Berkhemer-Credaire jotted herself a note on a napkin during a coffee conversation about the phenomenon. Ever the optimist, Betsy’s note focused on a potential solution: “Why can’t there be a law in California, like in Europe, requiring women on boards?” Several European countries had already mandated that 30% to 40% of board members should be women, so Betsy began to explore the issue further. She held dinner meetings with the handful of local women who already served on corporate boards. It was a small group. In 2010, women held only 10% of board seats in the Russell 3000 corporations (the largest 3,000 corporations in the U.S.). From that small but powerful dinner cohort sprang a movement. A lifelong entrepreneur, Betsy co-founded a Los Angeles public relations agency with business partner Richard Kline that was later acquired and renamed Berkhemer
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RELEVANCE REPORT 2021-22
Kline Golin/Harris (now Golin Los Angeles). She remained at the firm’s helm until launching retained executive search firm Berkhemer Clayton in 1994. With both PR expertise and a powerful network, Betsy leveraged her original dinner group’s influence and contacts and formed the Southern California chapter of Women Corporate Directors to socialize of the concept of a law. Betsy called upon friends from the National Association of Women Business Owners of California, where she had been statewide president, to engage their support and asked them to come with her to Sacramento. Their visit with legislators resulted in having California State Senator Hannah Beth Jackson wholeheartedly agree to take on what became a seven-year campaign to pass a law. Named Senate Bill 826 to represent the date (Aug. 26) when Congress passed the 19th Amendment that granted women
