Accelerating Progress for Women Through Workplace Inclusion

Brande Stellings is an expert on women’s leadership with a passion for advancing gender diversity in corporate boardrooms around the world.

As vice president of Catalyst’s Corporate Board Services, Stellings regularly consults with corporate boards and is a trusted resource to board chairs and CEOs wanting to diversify their talent pool.

She joined Catalyst in 2005 in its global strategic consulting practice, where she focused on advising Fortune 500 companies on business-driven diversity and inclusion strategies with a focus on advancing women. Since then, she has also successfully led the expansion of Catalyst’s Women on Board program from Canada to the United States.

Her colleagues say she’s invigorated the organization by contributing to Catalyst’s overall strategy, through lending a reasoned and experienced perspective.

Stellings is a former vice president of litigation for NBC Universal, and was co-leader of the award-winning New York/New Jersey chapter of the GE Women’s Network and a member of NBC Universal’s Affinity Council. She says her biggest career leap was making the move from practicing law to joining Catalyst. “It felt like a big risk, but fulfilled a long-held goal to work full-time on women’s advancement,” she said.

Today, she’s a respected expert on women’s leadership and diversity. She speaks to corporate audiences and is frequently quoted in the news media, including Fortune, PBS NewsHour, The New York Times, and The American Lawyer. A central theme is diversity leads to better decision making.

Stellings serves on the advisory board of DirectWomen (Accelerating Board Opportunities for Women) and the board of directors of Legal Momentum (the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund), as well as the Akanksha Fund Inc., which supports education in India.

She says the most important quality a woman leader should have is resilience. She received her J.D. cum laude from the Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude from Yale College.

Words she lives by: “Who knows when we’ll be back – order what you want, buy that souvenir, take the picture, make the most of the moment.”