About- Women in Leadership- College of Business & Economics

About Us

Program Overview

The Women in Leadership (WIL) Program in the College of Business and Economics offers students the opportunity to accelerate their skills, enabling them to succeed and advance professionally. This is an academia-industry collaboration that provides a significant and high-impact learning experience with insights from industry leaders, and creates the opportunity for high-potential students to work on social impact initiatives with their mentors to practice what they have learned.

Key Program Elements:

Mentoring: Fellows and Associates are paired with a business executive mentor for the academic year, who will provide advice on professional development.

Women in Leadership Seminar: Fellows and Associates will enroll and participate in a Leadership seminar at CBE during the Spring semester.

Social Entrepreneurship Leadership Project: Fellows will contribute to their community in a social entrepreneurship project of their choosing. Fellows will present their projects at a reception.*

Allowance: Fellows will receive an award of $1000 (contingent on funding availability and meeting program requirements)

*For example, fellows can identify a non-profit such as National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Habitat for Humanity, Alzheimer’s Foundation, CSUEB’s Pioneers for HOPE, or Kiva to lead an initiative for them. Fellows can also create a project from their vision that will positively impact the community. Take a look at projects by past Fellows.

Meet the Team

Asha Rao, Ph.D

Program Director, WIL

Professor of Management

is a Full Professor of Management at CBE and heads the Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior area. She conducts research and consults on leadership, negotiations, and diversity and inclusion in a global environment. She has published her research on these topics and presented at many academic and practitioner conferences. Dr. Rao has developed and taught courses based on her areas of expertise at CSUEB, Rutgers, and McGill Universities and received the Outstanding Faculty Awards for Teaching and Service. She is a Senior Fulbright Fellow.

Rupal Hollenbeck

Industry Lead

President, Checkpoint Sofware Technologies

, President of Check Point, manages all go-to-market functions for the company. Ms. Hollenbeck joined the executive team as Chief Commercial Officer in March 2022. She previously served as a member of Check Point’s Board of Directors from January 2021 to March 2022.

Most recently, Ms. Hollenbeck was CMO of AI hardware start-up Cerebras Systems in Silicon Valley. She also served as senior vice president and CMO at Oracle. Prior to joining Oracle, she was with Intel Corporation for over 23 years, where she held many senior leadership positions, including Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Global Data Center Sales and Vice President and General Manager of Intel China.

Ms. Hollenbeck is an advocate for inclusive organizations and the development of women around the world, having led communities with these goals at her previous companies. She is a founding member of Neythri, a non-profit organization dedicated to the professional advancement of South Asian women, and a founding LP in the affiliated VC firm Neythri Futures Fund. Ms. Hollenbeck is also an adjunct professor and industry advisor at California State University East Bay, where she teaches a Women in Leadership course in the College of Business and Economics. She serves on the Board of Directors of Blackbaud, the world's leading cloud software company powering social good.

Ms. Hollenbeck holds a Master’s degree in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and International Studies from Boston College.