About Me
From humble beginnings... Living my life in permanent beta.
Merline Saintil – a software engineer turned Silicon Valley COO and investor who has taken six companies through their IPOs – is an active investor in dozens of companies that are shaping enterprise technology, healthcare tech, and the future of work.
She is a Fortune 100 board director and is the Lead Independent Director of Rocket Lab (RKLB), a space exploration company. Her role as lead director of this public company is a distinction that only a small number of Black women hold in the world. In addition to her business interests, she is the co-founder of Black Women on Boards, a global organization of 200 executives at market-leading companies who help prepare, place and propel top Black female talent into boardrooms of the most innovative companies. She is also the co-executive producer and producer of OnBoard - a chronicle of the rise of Black women on America's boards and the evolution of board diversity from Patricia Roberts Harris in 1971 to the present day, as seen through the eyes of a group of fearless women.
Her Carnegie Mellon master’s degree serves her well as an advisor and public board director of several leading technology companies such as GitLab (GTLB), Symbotic (SYM), and TD Synnex (SNX).
Prior to her board roles, she was an executive with a proven track record in award-winning products in Fortune 500 and privately held companies, including Intuit, Yahoo, PayPal, Adobe, Joyent, and Sun Microsystems. Merline enjoys advising CEOs, have led and scaled product development teams in global digital transformations for B2B and B2C companies, and executed M&A integrations and divestitures.
Recognitions, certifications, and contributions include:
- 2022 Worth Magazine’s Worthy 100
- 2022 LinkedIn Top Voices in Leadership: The 10 creators to follow in the U.S.
- 2022 NACD Directorship 100™
- 2021 Most Influential Black Corporate Director by Savoy Magazine,
- 2019 Most Influential Corporate Board Directors by Women’s Inc.,
- Women of Influence 2017 by Silicon Valley Business Journal,
- Business Insider: #6 of the 22 Most Powerful Women Engineers in the World,
- Lifetime Achievement Award by Girls in Tech,
- Contributing writer for the Governance in the Digital Age book published by Diligent Corporation,
- Board Cybersecurity Oversight by NACD and the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute.
Outside of her business interests, Merline is passionate about supporting the next generation! She is also a fan of the Stanford Women's Soccer team, which conveniently plays near her home and includes her daughter, an equally ardent computer science student.
How I First Discovered My Passion
My aha moment that role models matter starts with a young lady. When Jasmine Aikey was nine, she read a story about a software engineer celebrated for her accomplishments. When she finished, she said, "I want to be a software engineer." In what would have usually been her 9th-grade year, she aced Calculus I and II at Foothill College. She also loves to draw and paint and has volunteered many hours to help younger kids in soccer. Fast forward, she is now 18 years old and is entering her junior year at Stanford, where she is on the women's soccer team and an equally ardent computer science student who may want to run a company someday. The point is that she refuses to be boxed in. As her coach, I have encouraged her to dream bigger than she thought possible. In return, it crystallized that I love growing ambitious, tenacious, and resilient emerging leaders and accelerating them. So, that's how my daughter Jasmine Aikey inspired me to start this endeavor. Learn more about her at: https://gostanford.com/sports/womens-soccer/roster/jasmine-aikey/20115.