Silicon Valley Business Journal recently profiled Clever Girls Founder and CEO Cat Lincoln for its Social Capital section. In the interview, Cat talks about leading her company using "roundtable leadership" and takes a human approach to business.

1. 12/16/2015 Cat Lincoln is CEO and founder of the Clever Girls Collective - Silicon Valley Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/print-edition/2015/12/11/clever-girls-collectives-cat-lincoln-thrives-on.html?s=print 1/3
VICKI THOMPSON
Cat Lincoln heads Clever Girls Collective, a
network of mostly female marketing
professionals. She lives in San Francisco and is
a member of the de Young museum, where she
loves to take visitors when they come to town. |
Cat Lincoln | Age: 46 | Residence: San
Francisco | Hometown: Milton, Massachusetts |
Family: Married; just celebrated 14th wedding
anniversary | Education: B.A., psychology,
Bates College in Lewiston, Maine | Languages:
“English and a little bit of French, and tourist
Italian that sometimes turns into French.” |
Career path: Worked with disabled adults after
college, then worked in the financial services
industry. Did administrative and compliance
work before being hired as vice president of
marketing at Wells Fargo. Exited “corporate
world” to become a marketing consultant and
From the Silicon Valley Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/print-edition/2015/12/11/clever-girls-
collectives-cat-lincoln-thrives-on.html
Social Capital
Clever Girls Collective's Cat Lincoln thrives on
transparency
Cat Lincoln won't let stereotypes dictate her work environment
 SUBSCRIBER CONTENT:
Dec 11, 2015, 3:00am PST
Cat Lincoln, co-founder and CEO of Clever
Girls Collective, started her marketing agency
in the middle of the recession. Despite the
economic downturn, the small network of
marketing consultants was able to grow and
thrive.
Lincoln led the collective during its 2013
partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation
to create the memorable #BatKid
phenomenon. Yet the self-professed
bookworm says her leadership strength
comes from her close partnership with fellow
executives and co-founders Kristy Sammis
and Stefania Pomponi.
I want to ask about your mentor in your first
financial services job. Could you tell me
more about her? Her name is Alice
Schulman. She’s still a dear, dear friend of
mine. She saw that I was a hard worker, and

2. 12/16/2015 Cat Lincoln is CEO and founder of the Clever Girls Collective - Silicon Valley Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/print-edition/2015/12/11/clever-girls-collectives-cat-lincoln-thrives-on.html?s=print 2/3
founded Clever Girls Collective soon after.that I was interested and smart. ... She also
looked out for me. Knowing what I know now,
as a manager and having hired people, I know she went to bat for me, over and
over again, to get me the right compensation, to get me raises, to get me
recognition. I always felt like she was on my side. That’s the difference for a lot
of people, but particularly for women, to have someone looking out for you and
saying, “Try this, try this.”
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Social Capital is a weekly Silicon Valley Business Journal feature that introduces
readers to the person behind their business persona.
Did you ever see yourself leading a female-centered network or company? I
feel like it’s been such a journey for me to learn to be a leader and to learn to
say, “Here’s what we’re doing and you can trust me and believe me.” I think it’s
a constant journey for anyone as a leader, male or female. It makes sense —
also, I will give a shout out to Wells Fargo. They gave me so much wonderful
leadership training. We’ve just pulled out all of the one-minute manager books
and training to start to use at Clever Girls. I would also say that we have a fairly
unique leadership structure — I call it roundtable leadership — where I’m the
CEO and at the same time I have my two partners Kristy (Sammis) and Stefania
(Pomponi) who know everything that I’m doing. We make our decisions
together.
How do you balance the female-centered network with some of the men that
are involved in the business? There’s a lot of popular culture around how to
mitigate being a woman in the work environment. Like “don’t be too emotional,
don’t cry, don’t talk too much.” We don’t consider it gossiping. We consider it
being transparent and sharing knowledge. I don’t think it’s being too personal.
It’s important to me to know if one of my colleague’s friend’s kid is having
trouble at school. And knowing that allows me to be more flexible with them
and say, “Hey, if you need this morning off, of course, just go do it. I understand

3. 12/16/2015 Cat Lincoln is CEO and founder of the Clever Girls Collective - Silicon Valley Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/print-edition/2015/12/11/clever-girls-collectives-cat-lincoln-thrives-on.html?s=print 3/3
that this is important to you.” And I have learned in my career that people will
come back and work much harder and be much more loyal to you if you show
them that humanity and trust. While those are usually considered female values
or female ways of working and things that have to be fixed, we just consider
them good humanity and smart business. So the way that the men fit in is that
men are humans, too, and men have kids, too.
On your website it says that you have an addiction to reality TV. What are your
favorite shows? I think my one true love is, of course, “The Bachelor” — I don’t
even know if you’d call it a series — the dynasty, all of them. We were so proud
when we got a couple of former Bachelors and the Bachelorettes in our
Instagram Elite Network. Oh my God, the entire company freaked out, because
we’re all huge Bachelor and Bachelorette fans.