Translating your Experience for the Board Room with Essye Miller [Rerelease] Artwork

How Women Inspire: Invest, Lead, Give

How Women Inspire: Invest, Lead, Give sets out to bring the voices of empowered and inspiring women forward to share their stories of stepping into leadership positions. We aspire to share what is possible and encourage more women to leap, striving for these board and c-suite positions themselves to change the path towards a more inclusive future. This podcast will share stories on how women lead and how their leadership opens the doors for the greater value of opportunities for others. By listening to this podcast, listeners will feel empowered to level up themselves or invest in women-led and women-founded companies to change the world of business. Find out more about How Women Inspire at https://www.howwomenlead.com/

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How Women Inspire: Invest, Lead, Give

Translating your Experience for the Board Room with Essye Miller [Rerelease]

July 02, 2025 • How Women Lead • Episode 175

Moving your career to the boardroom can be nerve-racking, but it’s never a journey you take alone. Join us as we sit down with Essye Miller, a distinguished public and private company board director. Drawing from her extensive 35-year career at the Department of Defense, including roles as CIO and CISO, Essye shares her unique journey transitioning from government service to corporate boardrooms. She offers invaluable guidance on leveraging public sector experience for private industry opportunities, navigating board interviews, building a robust digital presence, and her core philosophies on leadership and mentoring the next generation. This week’s episode 175 of How Women Inspire Podcast is about translating your experience for the board room!

In this episode of How Women Inspire Podcast, Essye Miller is sharing the importance of reframing your work experience for your board journey and actionable steps you can take right now to prepare yourself for the search for board opportunities in both the public and private sectors.

Essye Miller is the former CIO of the United States Department of Defense, where she held governance, charted strategy, piloted the DoD’s information enterprise overseeing its 11-figure budget, and influenced the overall technology strategy. Today, Essye is a public and private company board director and the CEO of Executive Business Management, her consultancy focuses on providing services and advisory to corporate businesses, government, and NGO clients on cybersecurity, information management, information technology, and national defense.

Some of the talking points Julie and Essye go over in this episode include:

Knowing when to pivot to a new direction in your career, such as from corporate to board service.
The importance of understanding the culture, dynamics, and values of the company before joining their board.
Creating a body of work with speaking engagements, articles, etc. for people to find you beyond your LinkedIn profile.
Recognizing that Superwoman does not exist and that communication is key in balancing family and work.

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Learn more about How Women Inspire at https://www.howwomenlead.com/podcast

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Julia Castro Abrams

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