Nurses on Boards: why the best board member may be the one who can't see it yet

What this conversation is about

The Nurses on Boards Coalition (NOBC) prepares nurses and places them on boards, from small community organizations to Fortune 500 companies. Its leaders make the business case: the nursing process, clinical training and pandemic crisis experience carry straight into governance. They also argue nurses belong on the boards of technology and AI companies, so tools get built with clinicians rather than handed to them.

The heart of the conversation is identity. Many nurses can't picture themselves at the board table. Glenn Llopis and his guests explore why capable people get seen, and see themselves, through one narrow lens, and what it takes to widen it.

The edit

"The barriers that we have within our own self, the shutters that we put on our eyes to say, I don't really see me, and who would want me to be in that position when indeed we have so much to offer." — Dr. Nancy Mannion · 00:28:24

"It may be your own self-image. It may be that you don't see people like you serving on boards." — Dr. Cole Edmonson · 00:26:17

How nurses reclaim the rest of who they are

For many, it starts with someone else noticing:

"Sometimes our leadership journey starts with a tap on the shoulder because someone sees in us what we don't see in ourselves." — Dr. Nancy Mannion · 00:28:24

And a seat alone isn't enough. It has to come with being heard:

"Because if you're at the table and you only have a voice but you're not listened to, then it's just noise." — Dr. Cole Edmonson · 00:23:29

The business case

"Today we have achieved over 11,000 board placements from small organizations and communities to international and Fortune 500 companies." — Dr. Nancy Mannion · 00:39:49

"When everyone else is playing checkers, nurses are playing 3D chess... they are looking at everything around them." — Dr. Cole Edmonson · 00:14:20

• Boards gain people-centered, crisis-tested judgment and a disciplined way of assessing, planning and evaluating.
• Technology gets better when clinicians help build it. Edmonson urges nurses to join health-tech and AI boards.
• Retention improves when experienced people see a bigger path. Board service gives nurses broader impact without leaving the profession.

Every organization has people whose capacity goes unseen. Glenn summed up what NOBC does:

"So many layers of knowledge and wisdom that is often unseen because we only see them in certain environments. And what you're doing is you're helping expand the environment for their capacities to multiply." — Glenn Llopis · 00:45:31

That's the work Glenn does with organizations: moving from standardization to personalization so more of every person is seen and put to work.

How this conversation connects to Glenn's methodology

Glenn's body of work comes down to one idea: without agency and without knowing the rooms where you belong, you can't have the conviction to reinvent yourself on purpose, or the strong identity that guides how you live and lead. The Nurses on Boards Coalition works on both sides at once.

• Agency (the Individual). The "tap on the shoulder" helps nurses see what they had edited out of their own self-image.
• The rooms (the Environment). The boardroom, and not just a seat in it: "if you're at the table and you only have a voice but you're not listened to, then it's just noise."
• Conviction and reinvention on purpose. Nurses earn it step by step, from shared governance to local, national and corporate boards.
• Identity that guides how they live and lead. NOBC wants every nurse to see "the whole nurse," with a place at any table.

See the body of work behind the method →