Founder’s Story

Boardroom Rising Corporation was founded by Mao C. Keo, MBA, a global business development and growth executive with more than two decades of experience operating inside complex organizations at moments of growth, transformation, and strategic inflection.

Before building Boardroom Rising, Mao held senior leadership roles at SAP, Adobe, and Oracle, where she led global ecosystem and growth strategies and worked closely with C-suite and executive leadership teams. Her work spanned regions, industries, and complex operating environments, often at moments where clarity, alignment, and judgment mattered as much as speed.

Alongside this professional path was a personal one that began long before any boardroom. Mao arrived in the United States as a Lao refugee, growing up in an underserved neighborhood in Southern California. She learned early what it meant to enter rooms without history, without context, and without a guaranteed voice. Watching who was listened to, who was overlooked, and how decisions were made was not theoretical. It was a survival skill learned in the community and refined in the boardroom.

That awareness carried forward into her professional life. Across companies and leadership roles, a recurring tension emerged. Leaders were asked to make consequential decisions quickly, often without space for reflection or alignment. Organizations rewarded momentum even when meaning was unclear. Story was treated as presentation, rather than as a discipline for sense-making, leadership, and judgment.

Boardroom Rising was created in response to that gap.

Here, story is treated as a strategic practice. It is how experience is integrated, how clarity is reached in complexity, and how leaders and organizations move forward with intention rather than reaction.

Mao is currently writing a memoir documenting her journey from a Lao refugee in an underserved neighborhood to the high-stakes world of global technology. Her work – and her upcoming book – is a testament to the power of finding one’s voice and the belief that you don't need a blueprint to lead. She is a fierce advocate for the 'modern boardroom,' teaching the next generation of leaders that they have the power within to build their own tables.