the new boss

EXCLUSIVE: Lisa Borders, Time’s Up’s First President and C.E.O., Knows This Isn’t Going to Be Easy

In her first interview as head of the anti-sexual misconduct group, the veteran executive discusses the work ahead: “This is not a club. I would just offer the invitation to everyone, right here, right now . . . come join us on this journey.”
lisa borders
Lisa Borders at the Boys and Girls Club of Kings County in Seattle, Washington, July 21, 2017.By Garrett Ellwood/Getty Images.

Lisa Borders has enjoyed a long career in both the public and private sectors: a job in local Atlanta politics morphed into a stretch in health care, which morphed into a stint as executive V.P. of global community affairs at Coca-Cola. In 2016, she became the fourth president in the W.N.B.A.’s two-decade history. Still, last October, she found herself wishing that she could do more. Borders, 60, recently recalled sitting in the league’s New York office, scanning the first reports about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct. “I remember reading it, thinking, ‘This is horrific,’” she said. She marveled at the revived momentum of Tarana Burke’s #MeToo movement and yearned to do something—anything—to lend her support.

Then, in January, Borders watched Oprah Winfrey give an impassioned speech at the Golden Globe Awards that, among many other things, touted the then-nascent group Time’s Up. The organization—founded to fight workplace sexual harassment, assault, and abuse in Hollywood and beyond—had already caught Borders’s attention, thanks to a neatly orchestrated launch on New Year’s Day. But Winfrey’s speech was her clarion call.

“I was being not just invited, but encouraged—implored—to step forward and be part of this transformational change for women,” Borders said in a phone interview last week to discuss her appointment, effective November 1, as Time’s Up’s first president and C.E.O.

Though the group boasts scads of A-list members, it has thus far operated without a single leader. (How, then, did it get anything done? “Well, we’re women!” founding member Tracee Ellis Ross wryly told Winfrey in an interview that aired shortly after the Globes.) Borders was understandably somewhat hesitant to address too many particulars of what her new job would entail—appropriate, perhaps, for the newly anointed chief of a young and developing organization. But over the course of two conversations, the second of which took place in a quiet publicist’s office, she did open up about her new position, crystalizing its aims and signifying the beginning of a new, more transparent era—one that will shore up Time’s Up as it moves into its next stage.

As Shonda Rhimes, who helped run the search for Time’s Up’s inaugural leader, put it: “Lisa has the qualities I wanted most, which is proven experience and commitment to gender and inclusion issues, and an amazing track record moving the needle of change.”

Borders managed to keep the news of her Time’s Up appointment a secret from most of the outside world even as she quietly tied up loose ends at her old job—which would have been difficult enough even if her efforts hadn’t coincided with the W.N.B.A. Finals in September. She’s been so busy, in fact, that when I asked if she’d paid attention to the circus surrounding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual assault (which he denies), she gave a firm “No.” (Both our interviews were conducted before Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s gripping Sept. 27 Senate testimony, and Kavanaugh’s loud, testy rebuttal. Following Ford’s testimony, Borders sent an e-mail saying, “The stakes for this nomination couldn’t be higher because we must have a government that respects the needs and rights of women. Dr. Ford’s eloquence spoke for millions of women.”) She’s been laser-focused on her work, Borders said. Since March, Time’s Up has made a point of publicly and forcefully condemning high-powered figures who have been accused of committing or enabling sexual misconduct. Over the last few weeks, the organization has released both a letter and a P.S.A. urging Kavanaugh to withdraw, and has orchestrated a nationwide walkout in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault.

Time’s Up has similarly called out men such as ousted CBS head Les Moonves, who has been accused of sexually harassing and sexually assaulting numerous women (he has denied the allegations); singer R. Kelly, who has been accused of sexually abusing women and holding them against their will (he has denied the allegations); and Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by over 80 women and is currently facing several sex-crime charges brought on by the Manhattan district attorney (he has denied all claims of nonconsensual sex). Borders was reluctant to speak directly about anyone who Time’s Up has already publicly addressed, or name people the group plans to address in the future. She dismissed the suggestion that the organization might one day aim P.S.A.s at President Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual assault by more than a dozen women (he has denied the allegations).

“Oh, I don’t want to speak about Donald Trump,” she said. “Time’s Up is so much bigger than any one person.”

When pressed to share any thoughts about the president, she declined again, instead opening up the question and focusing on the fact that “as a society, we live in a patriarchy. Period, full stop.”

Some will undoubtedly find her diplomacy frustrating—but to understand it, you should know that she was raised to value civility and the idea of performing one’s civic duty. Her grandfather was Rev. William Holmes Borders, a civil-rights leader and pastor of Atlanta’s influential Wheat Street Baptist Church. As a kid, Borders saw politicians like Maynard Jackson launch campaigns at her grandfather’s pulpit. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would sit up in the front row on Sundays, absorbing and learning, taking inspiration from her grandfather’s powerful sermons and preaching tactics. To her, King was just the father of her friends Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice, with whom she is still close. One of her more enduring memories is holding her grandfather’s hand at King’s funeral procession, watching two mules pull the wagon carrying his casket.

“I was probably 40 before I understood that was real history. And that I witnessed it,” she said.

Her childhood was a master class in powerful, moving oration. Borders herself is a precise speaker. If she answers a question by saying she’s going to give three examples and then an analogy, she will then do just that, at a clear, reassured pace. Her eye contact is warm but unyielding. She radiates power.

She also has the gloss of a born politician. After graduating from Duke—where she calcified her love of basketball and joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority—she leapt into politics. She pursued the sector until 2009, when she ran a losing bid for mayor of Atlanta. “It was very painful—very painful,” she said of the hometown loss. She did absolutely nothing for three days afterward. (But she never lost that political polish; she’s had to tell more than one admirer that she has no plans to ever run for president.)

As a student of sermons, she turned that failure into an illustrative parable—leaning on the old Christian tenet that if something is meant for you, it will be yours. If Borders had become mayor, she never would have gone to Coca-Cola. If she hadn’t gone to Coca-Cola, she wouldn’t have appealed to an organization like the W.N.B.A. Without the W.N.B.A., there’d be no Time’s Up gig. Don’t you see?

“If the measure of success is the awareness of the movement . . . oh my goodness, did they get an A-plus,” Borders said of her new employer, which dominated the conversation at the Globes even before Winfrey’s fiery speech—thanks to a group of founding members who brought prominent activists as their plus-ones (a decision that was met with a degree of skepticism by some) and a successful initiative to get nearly every female attendee to wear black in solidarity. (A number of men joined in as well.)

After those first profile-raising actions, the group began working on its ground game. The Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which offers subsidized legal support to those facing sexual misconduct in the workplace, has raised more than $22 million in the last nine months—and, per a spokesperson, has been contacted by more than 3,000 people, more than half of whom are low-income. It has also awarded $750,000 in grants to 18 nonprofit organizations that support low-wage workers enduring alleged sexual misconduct in the workplace. Of all of the group’s initiatives, it is the fund that is likely to continue producing easily quantifiable results: how much money it raises, how many cases it takes on, how many cases it wins, how it impacts future legislation.

At the W.N.B.A., Borders got used to serving as the organization’s public face—hosting press conferences and doing all manner of television, radio, print, and online interviews. She is ready to do the same at Time’s Up. “I expect it will be more intense,” she said evenly. “The iron is hot.” The organization has already faced a perception that it is dedicated largely to Hollywood figures with name and face recognition, for example—but Borders batted that idea away. “It’s out here for everybody. This is not a club,” she said. “I would just offer the invitation to everyone, right here, right now . . . come join us on this journey.”

The inner workings of Time’s Up have also been somewhat under the radar, and the organization has not yet broadcast its full slate of goals. But the group wants to change that, starting by explaining how things currently stand: per a spokeswoman, Time’s Up has a full-time staff of seven women in New York and Los Angeles. Operations are powered by a handful of private seed funders, including Rhimes and P.R. exec and former political operative Katie McGrath. There is no barrier to entry for everyday people who want to get involved; just sign up for the newsletter and boom—you’re a part of Time’s Up.

In April, the organization tapped Jana Rich of the Rich Talent Group to help lead the search for a new leader. Borders was recommended for the gig by her friend Wendy Clark, a Time’s Up founding member who worked with Borders during her time at Coca-Cola.

Clark’s timing was serendipitous. A few months back, the pair had found themselves on the same flight from New York to Atlanta, switching seats so they could sit together and catch up. “At the mid-point in the flight it struck me that Lisa could be the person Time’s Up was looking for,” Clark said. “I texted Jana Rich from the plane.”

Clark found an ally in Time’s Up founding member Tina Tchen as well, who also knew Borders beforehand (and counts herself a huge fan of the W.N.B.A.). “I’ve seen Lisa in action,” she said. “She understood what Time’s Up was about and also had ambition for where Time’s Up can go.”

After a course of interviews focusing on Borders’s career, her education, and understanding her “psychological profile,” which were conducted by 10 members of the group’s President and C.E.O. Search Committee—including Rhimes, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Kerry Washington—Borders was in.

Borders plans to spend her first week sussing out what’s been working and what hasn’t. She’ll also be readying herself to face a new level of scrutiny, though she is confident it won’t rattle her. She’s leaning on an old saying favored by her mother, Gloria Thomas Borders: “Adversity, for me, is like the agitator in a washing machine. It beats the heck out of the clothes, but they’re clean when they come out.”

When she gets to her Time’s Up desk, the first thing Borders wants to place upon it is a framed photo of Gloria, who died just over a month ago. They were very close. Her family, including her three siblings—Borders is the oldest—and her son, Dijon, are still grieving. They check in on one another often, offering to cook each other food—the most Southern “I love you” there is.

It was both her parents, but primarily her mother, who taught Borders not only how to nurture, but also how to navigate and negotiate—two lessons so many women have to teach themselves. These are the skills that will, she hopes, make her successful as the head of an organization with goodwill at its back and sharp corners in its future. There is so much that Time’s Up wants to change, which only became more apparent as a publicist checked in to remind Borders that our time was coming to a close. Lisa Borders had to go. There is so much work to do.