PROUT PERFORMER Lunch Talk with Claudia Brind-Woody

Regularily, our board member Albert Kehrer invites an inspiring role model of the LGBT*IQ community or an LGBT*IQ Ally for a chat. You can look forward to an interesting exchange about role models and visibility in the LGBT*IQ community.

Guest Of the day

Claudia Brind-Woody is currently the IBM Managing Director for the Walgreens Boots Alliance Integrated Account where she leads the IBM team in both Europe in North America.  Prior to this role, she was the Vice President and Managing Director for IBM Global Intellectual Property Licensing where she delivered more than $3 Billion of profit to IBM through IP Partnerships.   She also led the two large divestitures of IBM Software in 2019 – one was $1.77 Billion and the other was $545M.  Claudia has been with IBM since 1996, and has held multiple global roles during her tenure including work in Finland and the United Kingdom.

Claudia is an accomplished speaker who has done keynote speeches on LGBT Diversity throughout the world.   She has also contributed to the books: Out & Equal at Work: From Closet to Corner Office (2013) and The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out is Good for Business (2014).  She is featured in the book Pride and Joy: LGBTQ Artists, Icons and Everyday Heroes (2017).

Claudia serves on the Advisory Boards of WorkPlace Pride in Amsterdam, and The GayStar News.  She has also served on the Board of Directors of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, and Lambda Legal.

In 2011, Claudia received the Out & Equal Trailblazer Award and was listed in GO Magazine’s “100 Women We Love.”  In 2012 she was included in The Guardian’s WorldPride Power List Top 100.  In 2013, she was listed as #6 on The Financial Times LGBT Role Models, in 2014 was #10  on their list, and in 2015 was #5.  In 2015, she was also listed as #2 on the Telegraph Media Group’s Out at Work LGBT Top 50 Executives.  Most recently, she was included in the Diva Power List and named to the Financial Times LGBT Role Models Hall of Fame for 2016.

Before joining IBM in 1996, Claudia worked for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, as an executive for CenturyLink, and as the Assistant Dean of the College & Graduate School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.  She also served as the Assistant Athletics Director at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Tennessee.  She was also an Assistant Basketball Coach under Pat Summitt at the University of Tennessee.

Claudia holds a J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Georgia State University, an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.S. from the University of Tennessee.  She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Mary Baldwin College where she earned her B. A. summa cum laude.  She is admitted to practice law by the State Bar of Georgia.