Betsy Atkins is an American business executive and entrepreneur. She was the former chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the software provider Clear Standards, Inc. In 2010, Clear Standards was acquired by SAP. She is president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Baja Corp, a venture capital investment firm, that she founded in 1993. Atkins is on the board of directors of Wynn Resorts and Volvo Car Corporation. She previously served as chairman of the SAP AG advisory board and was a member of the ZocDoc advisory board. She was a member of the NASDAQ LLC Exchange board of directors and is a member of Florida International University's Health Care Network board of directors. Atkins is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[1] Atkins frequently appears on CNBC,[2] Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance[3] as a corporate governance commentator.
Atkins was born in the suburbs of Boston and went to a public high school. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her early career was in the industrial automation and semiconductor industry at General Electric. Atkins often credits her mother for encouraging her throughout her career to aspire to do great things and always be committed to giving back and helping others on their career paths and life journeys.
Atkins co-founded Interlan, an Ethernet network controller card systems company. The company was acquired by Micom Systems in 1985. In 1988, Atkins became the CEO of Key Computer Labs, selling the company to Amdahl Corporation.
In 1989, she co-founded Ascend Communications and served as a board member and their Global CRO and EVP marketing and services. Ascend was acquired by Lucent in 1999. Atkins joined the Lucent board in 2000.
Atkins became the CEO of NCI, Inc. a nutraceutical functional food company, building the company until it was acquired by Artal Luxembourg in 1993.
Atkins recent work has been in corporate governance, where she has served as an expert witness on the Adelphia bankruptcy case in 2003 and as chairman of the Special Litigation Committee at HealthSouth Corporation.
Atkins has served on more than 27 public boards and various private boards and a number of private equity and venture-backed boards in various industries. Atkins has been through 13 IPOs and has directorship experiences in America, Canada, France, China, and Sweden. According to a Harvard study, Atkins has served on the second most public boards of any woman.
Atkins released her first book, Behind Boardroom Doors: Lessons of a Corporate Director in 2013, which was intended to offer practical advice for those who serve on the boards of global, complex enterprises. In 2017, Atkins released an updated version of the book which includes new material about cybersecurity and digitization.
In 2019 Betsy Atkins published her third book Be Board Ready: The Secrets To Landing A Board Seat And Being A Great Director.
Atkins has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance as a Corporate Governance expert commentator.
Atkins has commentated on the role of the CBS board and its special committee review of Les Moonves.
Atkins is a regular Forbes contributor. Her area of focus includes corporate governance & business trends.
Atkins is an active proponent of women leadership in corporate settings. Atkins mentors women individually and especially on the boards where she serves. In 2018 she hosted a Women in Leadership luncheon at Volvo HQ in Sweden. Atkins joined the Wynn Resorts board of directors in 2018 and participated in the inaugural launch event of the Wynn Resorts Women's Leadership Forum.
Women Inc. Magazine named Betsy Atkins a 2018 Most Influential Corporate Director.
In 2018, Atkins was a featured speaker at the CEO2CEO Summit in NYC.
Atkins was a panelist speaker at the 2018 Nasdaq Advancing Women Leaders in the Boardroom conference.
Atkins received a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.