In the Cut Leadership Conversation with Dr. Thane Kreiner

Dr. Thane Kreiner started his impressive career as a scientist, founding and leading 4 life sciences ventures as the CEO. As the Executive Director of Santa Clara University’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, he transformed it into the world’s leading university-based accelerator. Building on his relationship with Santa Clara University, Thane co-founded Black Corporate Board Readiness designed to accelerate the representation of qualified Black leaders in corporate governance.

Thane, it's really great to meet you real-time and to have been reintroduced to you in several different ways. Thank you for coming on board to do this In the Cut Leadership Conversation with me.

I’m honored to have a conversation with you, Sheila, and thank you for inviting me.

In the complex global community in which we move and operate, how we show up requires so much of us. Tell me how you identify?

All of our identities are intersectional. I currently serve as a board member, an advisor, and as co-founder of the Black Corporate Board Readiness program. Previously I’ve been a CEO and a life sciences executive. I was trained as a scientist. That’s what I would say is my “professional” identity.

But I’m much more of a believer in work-life integration. I’m also a husband, a brother, a cousin and member of some really special chosen families. I’m a faithful friend in the ‘enemy within’ world – I’m a childless cat gay. And I’m really ultimately a believer in collective action for the greater good.

Yes, you are a believer in collective action for the greater good and I’m really interested in the work that you do?

Broadly, the work that I try to do is to shift systems towards justice for people and planet. The way that I try to do that today is by accompanying others on their journeys and helping catalyze resources that create change. I have 3 criteria for what I engage in.

• It has to have purpose, meaning it must shift systems toward justice for people and planet.

• It has to be with people I enjoy working with. It’s a privilege to be able to choose who I work with. What I look for is people who are full of love for the greater good.

• We have to make meaningful progress toward those goals. By that I mean we must be able to measure our progress over a period of time that is not indefinite

“On a planetary level, we are losing a lot of diversity right now and diversity makes our planet and people high-performing, resilient and beautiful.”

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I primarily serve in advisory and governance roles now. I work with a regenerative medicine company that is employing advanced bio-manufacturing including AI, robots and lasers with some super cool women founders who have a vision for self-derived cures. I’m on the board of a mental health startup that serves children in marginalized communities and on the board of a nonprofit that focuses on ending extinction caused by humans. On a planetary level, we are losing a lot of diversity right now and diversity makes our planet and people high-performing, resilient and beautiful.

That leads me to the work as co-founder of Black Corporate Board Readiness (BCBR). It’s a “for us, by us” community that accelerates corporate board diversity to benefit shareholders and stakeholders.

And weather permitting, I spend probably 20 hours  per week in my garden. It teaches me about diversity, beauty, nurturing and caring for each other and the planet.

Sheila: I love the connections people make when I ask this question and you’ve just done that. You integrated your training as a scientist, and how you think as a scientist, into how you solve and see things in other places. You are goals driven and from a science perspective, you want to solve something. You’re not just there for the science of it; you’re there for the learning and contribution and what that actually generates. Everything that you’ve described in terms of what you’re involved in is just that. I love that.

Thank you. Science and spiritually are much more connected than most people appreciate. Having an understanding about so many disciplines of science, I still find myself in awe every time I walk out into my garden about creation and how these things came to be. It instills in me a sense of responsibility for caring and nurturing for all that is on this planet.

Japanese maples in Thane’s garden.

I want to talk about your advisory roles for a minute. It’s one thing to be a CEO and be finished with it and never give back to it. I love what you said about accompanying others on their journey. So, what is it in you, where was it born, that you just don’t do the thing, but you do the thing and you continue the thing. You pay it forward. Where did that instinct come from?

One is from the mentors I’ve been fortunate to have in my life. Seeing what they modeled in terms of helping develop leaders like myself by providing opportunities that I never imagined I would have and having faith in me. They enabled me to have opportunities like setting up a business in Japan and China and lobbying on Capitol Hill. And I was successful because of how they mentored and accompanied me versus telling me what to do. It wasn’t directed. It was more of an open invitation.

The other major and deep influence was my Mother, who passed far too soon at age 59 from pancreatic cancer. I remember her saying something to me in the early 1990s when I was in an unhealthy relationship. I was in despair, and my Mother who had her own sufferings throughout her life, shared that what helped her most was helping other people. And I get so much joy in seeing other people succeed, becoming their full selves, discovering and exercising their talents.

Sheila: Thank you for knowing that truth about yourself.

What was your first “known to you” leadership moment and what sticks out about it?

Thinking about this actually makes me laugh. It was Spring 1998 and I remember the exact day and time. What I remember is that someone else saw something in me that I did not understand, did not value and had not nurtured.

My mentor, Sue Siegel, who came to Affymetrix as President. I started there as an intern and had already been employed for 5 years. I wrote the first private placement memorandum, which we called a Series A back then. I was leading program management and marketing across the company and over the next 8 years that Sue and I worked together, she gave me all kinds of learning opportunities.

My takeaway is that leadership isn’t about you. It’s about helping others be their best and Sue personified that philosophy then and still does today, as much as anyone I’ve ever known. We could sure use more of that. It’s accretive. People wrote about her in the book Multipliers. She’s the phenotype of a multiplier because she sees something in you and she helps you be that. She said that there were parts of me that are not being exercised and that she would help me to discover and live them. Because there is joy when you are exercising your talents.

Sheila: It occurs to me that there is a spectrum here where often those who have benefited from mentoring or sponsorship don’t necessarily have to recognize their place on the spectrum nor why it turned out that way for them. And they don’t have to concern themselves with the folx on the other end of the spectrum. But for some reason, you have the capacity to care about the spectrum and those who have not benefited as much as you. You have named a responsibility of doing something about those inequities and that takes courage.

Yes, courage is doing what in your heart you know is right despite fear. Part of my continual spiritual discernment process is to pay attention to the calling to do something for people who are marginalized or ignored. In the end, it’s a really beautiful thing that has helped me grow. These experiences have helped me be present for people in some of the most challenging times of their lives.

Let’s talk about your identity in leadership how we  invite ourselves to be authentic in the workplace and beyond. How does your identity inform your leadership style? 

One of the many things I learned from Sue is her set or principles—her ways of working—which guided her to great success. My leadership principles include authenticity and vulnerability. And this is something that in the future may not be valued. We are seeing a resurgence of extreme masculinity now that does not value vulnerability and vulnerability is what makes it possible for people to learn. I think the role of leaders is to help people learn about themselves, their talents and purpose in life.

Another role of a leader is to not pretend that risk and uncertainty don’t exist, but to help them absorb uncertainty and provide guidance and vision to what is possible when things feel impossible. That’s how I try to lead. The aspects of my identity growing up gay in Texas in a family with challenges, having to quickly analyze complex situations and figure out what my survival strategy was, is how some of these things became hardwired.

Sheila: I believe that we are the sum total of our life experiences. I am Freudian in that way and it surely shows up in the human you are today.

“Part of my continual spiritual discernment process it to pay attention to the calling to do something for people who are marginalized or ignored.”

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Describe a leadership moment when you learned something important.

Sue asked me to set up the Affymetrix business in Japan. I had never been to Japan, knew nothing about it and did not speak the language, but she had faith in me. It was a learning moment that informed how I manage and led others – to give people opportunities they never imagined and ensure they know that I have faith and trust in them. Words like “I believe in you and you can do this” are so powerful.

And letting people know that you’re there for them if something comes up where they have uncertainty. Part of her style that I’ve done my best to emulate and make my own is less about giving people the answers and more about helping them think about what are the next questions to ask.

Sheila: That’s so important. Being an advisor or mentor, it can be easy to give the answer – to tee up the solution. But the win is in helping people get to their own conclusion about something. Your ability to ask the right questions that may come from your scientific, analytic mind.

You’re raising something that is really central to my identity and how I process information. Sue said to me after a really important meeting that she had never met anyone who had the analytical skills that I exhibited in that meeting. I had walked everyone along the path from A to B in a logical way and they were totally on board which was what we wanted the outcome to be.

I realized that for me, what happened wasn’t analytical but intuition. Whenever I take the Myers-Briggs assessment I am always a very “hard” N. Like a way out there N! So, I learned that I quickly see the path based on intuition and the analytical part of my brain follows.

What surprises you about leadership?

It’s not a surprise anymore but over the years it’s become a gradual awareness that leadership isn’t about leaders, but the people you are leading. It’s not about you. There are far too many people today who hold leadership in an ego driven framework.

What’s your leadership superpower?

My mother said that people are smart in different ways. I think a gift I have is being able to see not just what the strategic vision is, but how to execute it. Not by myself, but by getting people aligned with the vision.

Sheila: I want to go back to something you said earlier about accompanying people on their journey and say it’s a possibility journey. It’s not the dust that you blow but the words you speak into people that help them understand that it’s possible.

What’s a song or poem or book that you pick up when you’re going into a gnarly, difficult situation?

I’m a physical person so exercise for me is the thing. Having my body aligned and calm and knowing where my breath is how I survive what is happening and make it through. There is no mind/body/spirit separation.

What’s your life’s purpose?

As I said before, it’s about catalyzing systems level change for the people and the planet. But at this age and stage, it’s less about doing the catalyzing and more about helping others realize their potential and dreams in how they care for people and the planet.

What talent do you have that you’re not using, Thane?

I’m a firm believer in that you must differentiate between skills, experience and talents. So, I define skill as behaviors or thought patterns that people can learn with some practice like playing the piano or basketball or cooking. Experiences help us get better at those skills. When you’re practicing those skills, you sometimes discover that you have a talent that you may not have known.

Through opportunities that Sue gave me, I learned I have a talent for building and leading world-class teams. I’m no longer doing that because for the most part I no longer serve in operating roles other than for BCBR and I’ll do anything for them.

If this 5 years is a chapter, what’s this chapter about?

This is an interesting question because I think it’s the same that it’s been for many years. It’s about impact – purpose, people and progress – toward health for people and the planet. It’s about seeing the change that we all believe needs to happen.

Sheila: At such a time as this, if impact is where your soul and spirit is, I’m interested in sitting in the front row and watching.

It’s a year from now, and other than being alive, what are you celebrating?

The Beloved BCBR Community. This incredible concentration of exceptional talent and their vision and energy for building a better world is such a wellspring of joy and positive energy for me.

Sheila: In another conversation, I want to talk with you about that and where you see your program going. These are rough waters for organizations and programs designed to help build more dynamic, inclusive and representative boards.

The lunch counters in Nashville were rough waters for John Lewis, and the Selma bridge and Tulsa in 1921 – we’re not going back.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Yes, you asked me to think about a favorite quote and it’s from Isabel Wilkerson and is in her book Caste - the price of privilege is the moral duty to act. While my family had real economic hardships, I am acutely aware of my privilege as a white man and the opportunities I’ve had because of that. In education, work situations and frankly, being alive.

Sheila: With that I say, thank you.

Listen to Thane discuss two engines of impact, The Miller Center and the Black Corporate Board Readiness Program and please share a message for him below.