How to Get on a Board, by Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter

Networking is my hobbyPhotograph by Nathan Perkel for Bloomberg Businessweek

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April 12, 2013 at 1:41 AM UTC

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This article is part of the April 15, 2013 issue of businessweek.

I’ve been on 23 public-company boards in the last 28 years. If you want to be on boards, you have to fish where the fish are. That means getting to know CEOs and others who are board members. I was 28 and vice president of sales at a small vendor to cable companies when I decided to try to get elected to the board of the National Cable Television Association. I called all 2,000 industry vendors and promised to represent them if they sent in proxy votes for me. I won on my second try in 1987.

There was only one other female director, and I was at least three management levels below everyone else. But I became very active. I wrote a newsletter, and I befriended all the CEOs. Not only did this help me get more business for my company, but I got to know people who recommended me to join the company boards they served on. I even got my CEO job through my board connections. I’d already served on a board with many of the directors who recruited me to be a CEO.