About Us

Rona Wells has served OnBoard as a past president (2003), a charter advocate, and the Executive Director from 2004 – 2020. In honor of her retirement from our board of directors, OnBoard recognizes the impact of Rona’s countless contributions to this organisation. Here Rona shares her perspective as a long-time leader and champion of OnBoard’s mission.

Rona Wells is the President of Wells Holdings, which provides angel investments, consulting and fee-based services to companies, entrepreneurs and officers of Fortune 500 companies.  After earning a degree in Engineering from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, Rona began her career working for the Bell System, followed by CNA Insurance. Before her retirement, Rona was a vice-president and corporate officer of Kimberly-Clarke, where she managed $300 million P&Ls, including pulp manufacturing plants and a B2B marketing oriented industrial wiper business. 

Of Rona’s background in manufacturing, Charter Advocate Linda Klein says, “Rona was a trailblazer in her career.  An engineer by training, she was the first woman to run a plant for Kimberly Clark.  She was a mentor to many women in her career and is delighted that so many of her mentees have had great success.”  

Rona’s board service includes board of advisors for HolaDoctor, a Spanish-language health and wellness digital network; board of Bank of North Georgia when it was a $3.7 billion in assets, individually chartered bank, owned by Synovus; and the nonprofit board of Atlanta Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), among other boards oriented towards entrepreneurs. During her time as OnBoard’s President Rona was one of several organizational leaders who created ION, the InterOrganization Network, to help give member organizations a national presence and share best practices for advocacy.

Rona became involved in OnBoard (then BDN) as a volunteer in 2000 after learning about the organization from Martha Ezzard’s AJC article, which highlighted the lack of gender diversity on the board of SunTrust. She describes her alignment with OnBoard as stemming from a desire to help those around her, “Its a passion of mine, seeing women in business succeed, particularly in terms of getting in the c-suite and on boards, so the mission was a natural fit in terms of my interest.” 

In her initial volunteer work Rona brought her analytical skills to help produce the Annual Study. The Annual Study is OnBoard’s most compelling tool in advocating for gender equity. This is largely due to its consistency, accuracy and visibility, to which Rona has contributed countless hours of leadership, care and focus. 

Since she joined the board of directors in 2001, many of OnBoard’s programs were created under Rona’s leadership. It’s these initiatives, she says, that create tangible impact and lead to greater recognition of OnBoard’s mission. “That’s really what we were focused on, raising the visibility of OnBoard through initiatives and programs, including Get On Board!, OnBoard Accelerator, a matching service for board placement, and  recognizing  achievements through awards such as the Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Award.”

When asked what aspects of her service with OnBoard have been the most meaningful, Rona said “What I’ve enjoyed the most is the collaborative relationships with the people, board and membership, that the mission of OnBoard seems to naturally draw.”

Looking toward the future, Rona would like to see at least 60% of Georgia Public Companies have parity on their board by OnBoard’s 40th anniversary. She finds encouragement in recent trends: “I’m excited about the progress that has been made in the last four to five years through the acceleration of women being selected for board service.”

Yum Arnold, 2004 recipient of the Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Award, charter Advocate and long-time supporter, shares her perspective as an early for-profit board member.

After starting her career at Coca-Cola USA, Yum acquired a small distribution company and in 15 years grew it into one of the top five private companies in Georgia. Then, in 1998, she co-founded Leapfrog Services, where she remains its CEO.

Throughout her career, Yum has been an active non-profit board member and supporter, as well as a recipient of countless awards for her contributions, some of which include being named the 2002 Entrepreneur of the Year by the Metropolitan Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and being inducted into the 2006 YWCA Academy of Women. She was also named the 2014 Most Admired CEO in the Technology Sector, and the 2017 Women Who Mean Business Honoree by The Atlanta Business Chronicle.  

Yum’s extensive not-for-profit work spans the arts, education and the environment. She serves on the Board of Trustees of EARTH University Foundation, Spelman College; on the Governing Board of The Woodruff Arts Center; chairs the board of Achieve Atlanta; and is Deputy Chair of The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. She is also a past Chair of the Board of The Georgia Conservancy, The Carter Center Board of Councilors and her alma mater, Mary Baldwin College.

Yum has served on a total of six NYSE–listed firms. Her entrepreneurial experience, strategic viewpoint and practical business knowledge were the reasons she was named to her first for-profit board position in 1993, and over time, her network helped her gain new seats. During different terms she served as Lead Director as well as Head of Governance, and on Compensation and Audit committees. 

Yum’s advice to new female board members is: “Don’t be afraid to speak up, but also make sure that your voice is heard. One of the benefits of having multiple women on a board is they can reinforce each other’s contributions. Before you accept a board role, it is a good idea to interview all the other sitting board members. And make sure the business aligns with something you are passionate about.”

Yum continues to make her own education a priority by regularly attending Harvard Business School Intensive courses. She says her early upbringing in Southern Virginia with three brothers and a father who taught her to chart stock prices at a young age gave her a great foundation for a male-dominated business world.

When asked what OnBoard’s goals should be for its 40th anniversary, Yum says she would like to see all Georgia boards have at least three women in their board rooms, with a strong recognition of the value they bring to those positions. 

We at OnBoard are incredibly grateful to Yum for her contributions to our organization!

OnBoard Chair Rachel Perry shares her perspective on the strong alignment between the organization’s mission and her goals. Rachel is North America Chief Innovation Officer of Aon, where she brings more than 25 years of experience in the commercial risk insurance industry to her role. Her goal is to become an executive on a for-profit board and to passionately support increasing the number of women earning board seats, particularly women of color. Rachel embodies the next chapter of the long-standing support Aon has provided for OnBoard. 

“OnBoard has drawn great speakers to share their experiences throughout my more than five-year tenure on our board,” Rachel recalls. “An unforgettable speaker lineup occurred during an Atlanta mayoral election season where three women candidates shared authentic, engaging discussions on one stage. This moment solidified for me that OnBoard’s influence creates compelling conversations that matter.”

Rachel outlines the value of participating in OnBoard to include accountability, networking and programmatic resources: accountability to each other, the mission and the Georgia companies tracked in the Annual Study; networking across industries, companies and profession to enhance the learning environment; and programs and events to help members understand the many aspects of serving on for-profit boards.  

When asked what OnBoard’s goals should be for its 40th anniversary, Rachel says she would like to see women represent 30–50% of all for-profit boards, with significant growth in women of color.

“Ideally, board diversity will become the norm, and OnBoard can continue to evolve to support the next challenge,” she says. “We owe such gratitude to the women who founded OnBoard in 1993 and the charter Advocates who accelerated our progress.”

We at OnBoard are incredibly grateful to Rachel for her contributions to our organization!

Jackie Parker, OnBoard’s president in 2014 and 2015, shares her perspective on the key initiatives that were launched during her term. 

After starting her career in sales and marketing, Jackie moved into a series of high-profile corporate roles championing diversity and supporting not-for-profit initiatives. She has served on many local and global non-for-profit boards and has worked on corporate foundations. Today, she is the Senior Vice President of Talent Management and Chief Diversity Officer for Global Payments, Inc. Jackie’s love of strategic work and her governance background has served OnBoard and many other organizations incredibly well.

During Jackie’s presidency at OnBoard, the board launched two very innovative initiatives. First was a new aligned organization, Next OnBoard. There was a real need to support the segment of high-potential women early in their careers with specific programming and networking opportunities. The OnBoard board advised a talented team of young women which did the work to build out the charter and launch the organization. Today, Next OnBoard boasts a robust leadership team and program calendar and remains tightly aligned with OnBoard.  

“The Get On Board! program was created and launched as the number of women being named to boards was continuing to feel stuck,” Jackie recalls. “This was among the early events designed to introduce CEOs and board decision-makers to the ‘board-ready’ women of OnBoard. It was a ‘hot ticket’ when launched and continues to be a highly sought-after invitation.”

Jackie says she deeply valued the passion and commitment of the OnBoard board, and greatly appreciated the men who were serving on the board, as well. 

Looking forward for the next 10 years, she says she would like to see OnBoard continue to refine its diversity metrics around for-profit boards and develop a self-assessment on its membership. 

We at OnBoard are incredibly grateful to Jackie for her contributions to our organization and its empowering mission!

Long time OnBoard volunteer, advocate and integral member of the Annual Study team, Mary Madden, shares her perspective as an early for-profit board member.  

In 1980, Mary was named to her first board position with Information America Inc., and in 1994, she was able to have a second woman named to that board. This was just the beginning of her work to help women earn board seats. Mary was later named to the SYNAVANT Inc. board, served as Chairman and Executive Director of the Atlanta office of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), and in 2005, co-founded the Atlanta Chapter of Women Corporate Directors. As a speaker and advisor, Mary offered insight when there were few women to do so. 

During her terms of board service, Mary says the hardest part of her role was “learning how to get to the root cause of the problem we were working on –– how to get the whole story and required insights, without offending the leaders,” as well as finding a way to motivate people to take an active role in the work at hand. She says the best part was getting to know so many interesting people. Over her 40-year career and as a three-time runner up in Inc’s Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, she blazed many trails.   

While Mary has since retired from her corporate and entrepreneurial ventures, as well as her not-for-profit board roles, she remains passionate about the value that OnBoard continues to provide our members: expanding their network and programmatically delivering insights on the actions needed to gain a board seat. 

We at OnBoard are incredibly grateful to Mary for her contributions to our organization!