{"id":21580,"date":"2017-10-23T13:39:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T20:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=21580"},"modified":"2018-11-11T22:25:53","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T06:25:53","slug":"burton-ceo-donna-carpenter-prioritizes-gender-equity-on-and-off-the-slopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/burton-ceo-donna-carpenter-prioritizes-gender-equity-on-and-off-the-slopes","title":{"rendered":"Burton CEO Donna Carpenter Prioritizes Gender Equity On and Off the Slopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen you become a better place for women to work, you become a better place for everybody to work.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s late September and while fall temperatures have been unseasonably warm at Burton <\/a>headquarters in Burlington, Vermont, news of the first snowfall at resorts across Colorado, Oregon and California signals the start of busy season. The annual cycle of research and development, product testing, production and distribution is culminating with the release of the company\u2019s 2017-18 line of snowboard gear. Given the whirlwind of activity, CEO Donna Carpenter is unmistakably casual and characteristically upbeat as we talk.<\/p>\n

A privately owned company with more than 800 employees globally, Jake Burton Carpenter, Donna\u2019s husband, founded Burton Snowboards in 1977. It\u2019s recognized industry-wide as a pioneering brand in the relatively young sport of snowboarding, which began in the mid-60s with the bindingless Snurfer board. Since the early days as a co-owner, Donna has been an integral part of the company, contributing to the worldwide growth of the sport, as well as advocating for women through Burton\u2019s Women\u2019s Leadership Initiative, an internal effort led by Donna to raise up women in the workplace.<\/p>\n

\"Donna

Photo Courtesy: Burton<\/p><\/div>\n

Jake and Donna met at a New Year\u2019s Eve party in 1982 at the Mill Tavern in Londonderry, Vermont. The two married a year and a half later\u2014it was the beginning of a nurturing personal and professional relationship, what Donna dubs her \u201caccidental entrepreneur\u201d career.<\/p>\n

Over the past nearly four decades, Donna\u2019s role at Burton has evolved along with the needs of the company and her growing family. Her first job was answering product order calls from their bedroom in the early 1980s while Jake made snowboards in the back barn. Donna went on to establish the company\u2019s European sales and operations, and then served as CFO before taking a break from her day-to-day role to raise their three boys and launch her own business in 1992\u2014the Harvest Market<\/a> in Stowe, Vermont. Donna continued to remain actively involved with Burton in various roles throughout this time.<\/p>\n

In 2009, Donna transitioned back to a full-time role overseeing international sales. Her career progressed from there: In 2011 she became company president, and in February of 2016 she advanced to the top position as CEO.<\/p>\n

\"Burton

Photo Credit: Winnie Au<\/p><\/div>\n

In her role as CEO, Donna has invested in and focused on product innovation, sustainability and gender equity. \u201cBecause we\u2019re a private company, we can invest in what we want to invest in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Burton\u2019s focus on gender equity arose in 2003, at a time when Donna was away from Burton. It was Jake who realized during a global directors meeting that of the 25 people at the table, only three were women. \u201cHe knew at a gut level that something was wrong,\u201d Donna said. She attributed the imbalance to the rapid growth of the brand and the hiring practices that followed. \u201cWe were pulling from the ski, skate and surf industries, and we kind of took on this male-dominated culture that we hadn\u2019t planned for,\u201d Donna said. \u201cFor me it was this \u2018Oh, shit\u2019 moment\u2014women don\u2019t feel welcome in this company or the snowboard community.\u201d Donna jumped back in, taking on the title of founder and director of Burton Snowboards Women\u2019s Initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we\u2019re a private company, we can invest in what we want to invest in.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2004, Donna established Burton\u2019s Women\u2019s Leadership Initiative (WLI). \u201cThe idea was to pull key women from every department and say, \u2018What are the short-term opportunities to increase women\u2019s leadership here and what are the long-term things we should work on?\u2019\u201d What was expected to be a short-term focus group is now in its thirteenth year and has evolved over time.<\/p>\n

The first issue the WLI focused on was the fact that women couldn\u2019t envision a future at the company. \u201cWomen said they didn\u2019t see themselves here 10 years from now with a family,\u201d Donna said. In response, she introduced a generous maternity and paternity policy, which includes allowing for a caregiver to travel with new moms and dads on business trips for the first 18 months.<\/p>\n

The initiative also addressed female employees\u2019 appeal for mentors. \u201cWomen told me they craved a mentor. It happened sort of naturally for men, but when you\u2019re the only woman in the room, it\u2019s hard to find a mentor,\u201d Donna said. So, she established a mentorship program in 2006 initially open to female employees. After just two years, 50 percent of the women who participated in the program had either been promoted or moved to a department that better aligned with their professional goals, according to Burton. Demand was high throughout the company for formal mentorship, so in 2010 Burton expanded the program to be co-ed.<\/p>\n

Today, there are 121 active mentor and mentees, including Carly Robbins, a mentee in Burton\u2019s products group. She attributes her mentor, an executive with two decades of experience at the company, with not only providing encouragement and reassurance, but also helping her see beyond short-term goals and focus on her future. The insight and guidance has been invaluable, shares Carly, \u201cI\u2019ve found it a critical building block for my career path here at Burton, and I\u2019m so grateful to have been given access to this incredible resource.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Burton<\/p>\n

The successful WLI program continued to evolve to include recruiting practices. Donna created a policy requiring hiring managers for leadership positions to include at least one woman among the finalists. That policy allowed Burton to go from under 10 percent female leadership in 2004 to more than 40 percent today.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you become a better place for women to work, you become a better place for everybody to work,\u201d Donna said.<\/p>\n

\"Burton

The new Burton Step On\u2122 boot-to-binding connection system (Photo Credit: Gabe L\u2019Heureux)<\/p><\/div>\n

The benefits of this intentional focus on gender equality at Burton is on display with the release of the new Burton Step On\u2122 boot-to-binding connection system. The technology allows riders to start descending immediately after getting off the chairlift, eliminating the inconvenience of having to stop and lean over, or sit down to buckle snowboard boots into bindings.<\/p>\n

Chris Cunningham, global vice president of product at Burton refers to the Step On\u2122 project as a platform level project at Burton\u2014the highest level crossing over all categories with a dedicated team of six engineers, four years in the making. Cunningham says historically, a massive product development like this would have originated in the men\u2019s category. \u201cWe tended to be male dominated. It was just easier to get men\u2019s figured out and then adapt it for women,\u201d he said. \u201cDonna called that out and with the Step On\u2122; she had us considering men and women simultaneously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right from the beginning, the engineers stretched the scope to include all size ranges from a women\u2019s 4 to a men\u2019s 13. Through the process, the team was able to catch potential issues that could have impacted women\u2019s experience with the Step On\u2122 system. Cunningham says they discovered during testing that women weren\u2019t able to step in to the forward toe clip with the same ease as the heavier men. A solution was implemented with an easy materials adjustment.<\/p>\n

\"Burton

\u201cI really believe you cannot address the women\u2019s market unless you have women in strategic decision-making roles who are really shaping what\u2019s going out there,\u201d Donna says. (Photo Credit: Gabe L\u2019Heureux)<\/p><\/div>\n

Outside of product innovation and internal programs, Burton has led the way in gender equality by setting an example within the industry. The annual Burton U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships, now in its 36th<\/sup> year, has awarded equal prize money to men and women since its inception. More recently, following last year\u2019s presidential election, Burton covered employees\u2019 costs to attend the Women\u2019s March on Washington in January 2017. And the company continues to educate and encourage the next generation of new female riders through its Learn To Ride program<\/a> and Chill Foundation<\/a>, a nonprofit founded by Donna and Jake.<\/p>\n

\"Burton

Burton employees attended the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C. (Photo Credit: Jesse Dawson)<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s not clear whether you can draw a straight line from Burton\u2019s progressive equality policies to this past winter\u2019s all-time-high snowboarding participation figure of 847,000 for female boarders ages 17 and under\u2014a 9 percent year-over-year increase, according to Snowsports Industries America<\/a>. But what is clear is that women today can see themselves as snowboarders. And Burton, thanks to an authentic effort and the vision of its CEO, is there to give them that push to get on board.<\/p>\n

Shop Burton<\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen you become a better place for women to work, you become a better place for everybody to work.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s late September and while fall temperatures have been unseasonably warm at Burton headquarters in Burlington, Vermont, news of the first snowfall at resorts across Colorado, Oregon and California signals the start of busy season. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":21886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1426,288,726,472,364],"internal-tag":[1683],"class_list":["post-21580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snowsports","tag-burton","tag-featured","tag-force-of-nature","tag-snowboarding","tag-snowsports","internal-tag-pre-redirect-snowsports"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/burton-ceo-donna-carpenter-prioritizes-gender-equity-on-and-off-the-slopes","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Burton CEO Donna Carpenter Prioritizes Gender Equity On and Off the Slopes","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/burton-ceo-donna-carpenter-prioritizes-gender-equity-on-and-off-the-slopes","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/burton-ceo-donna-carpenter-prioritizes-gender-equity-on-and-off-the-slopes"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/DonnaCarpenter03_094_HERO-NEW.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/10\/DonnaCarpenter03_094_HERO-NEW.jpg?fit=2500%2C1667"},"articleSection":"Snowsports","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Flandreau"}],"creator":["Michelle Flandreau"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["burton","featured","force of nature","snowboarding","snowsports"],"dateCreated":"2017-10-23T20:39:47Z","datePublished":"2017-10-23T20:39:47Z","dateModified":"2018-11-12T06:25:53Z"},"rendered":"