Leadership Lessons

Marshall University Board of Governors member Ginny Lee was born in the inner city of Boston to parents who emigrated from China in the late 1950s with less than $100 in their pockets. She grew up in a modestincome household, getting by on food stamps and on free and reduced lunch programs in the Boston public school system.

When Lee was earning her undergraduate degree at Brown University, she put herself through school by taking out the maximum amount of student loans allowed and worked 30-35 hours a week across three jobs to make ends meet.

If that wasn't enough, she also played on the varsity volleyball team at Brown. She earned first team All-Ivy all four years and became the second volleyball player ever inducted into the Brown Athletic Hall of Fame.

Lee went on to earn her master's degree in business administration and management (MBA) from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Lee started her career in investment banking, moved on to a major consumer products company and then went on to management consulting after completing her MBA.

She also had a nearly 18-year career at Intuit, where she was a senior executive and held a variety of general manager positions, as well as a variety of business and technology leadership roles, including serving as senior vice president and chief information officer. After her career at Intuit, she served as president and chief operating officer at the online education giant Khan Academy.

Lee helped lead Khan Academy through the COVID-19 pandemic, when online learning really took off out of necessity. This was one of her biggest challenges and opportunities that she encountered while there.

"Brad (Smith) would often tell us at Intuit, 'You never fix the roof when it's raining because by that time, it's too late,'" Lee said. She took that lesson to Khan Academy and made sure that Khan Academy went through a major re-architecture of the platform so it could scale effectively.

And thank goodness it did because when COVID-19 hit in the spring of 2020, Lee said they went from 17 million website users per month to 27 million website users per month.

Marshall's tie with Khan Academy doesn't stop at Lee. This semester, Marshall Online is piloting a partnership with Khan Academy to embed Khanmigo, an artificial intelligence (AI) learning assistant, into select online courses.

Through her career of leading small teams to leading teams of over 1,200, Lee said she had to learn to scale herself and her leadership team to execute well and meet different business challenges.

Lee's leadership philosophy includes the following six tenants:

1. Create a vision and inspire others to make it happen. Know where you are driving and lead with a balance of the mind, hand and heart.

2. Always start with the people. Strategy and strong execution will follow.

3. Solve for the total company first, the team second, and the individual third. Focus on putting "points on the board," and good things for the individual will naturally come.

4. Power of the team. No "hero mentality," as you can't accomplish anything on your own.

5. Spend time on what's important. Focus on the critical few priorities and not the trivial many.

6. Cookie cutters won't work. Situational leadership is key.

Lee's now on her "third chapter” in life — focusing on paying it forward as other people did for her throughout her life.

She currently serves on the boards of directors for Oportun, OnTrac and Guideline. She also facilitates an MBA course on interpersonal dynamics and she does executive leadership development at Stanford Business School, as well as serving on the Marshall University Board of Governors. Lee's term on Marshall's board began in October 2022 and runs until the end of June 2027.

"My background is similar to the student profile of Marshall — good, honest, hard-working people coming from modest means and with big dreams — so I resonate with the Marshall students a lot," said Lee, who is also a basketball fan, one who went from cheering the Boston Celtics to being a Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry fan.

Some of the initiatives Marshall is working on that Lee is excited about include increasing the applicant pool, the acceptance and graduation rates, the Institute for Cyber Security and the Marshall for All, Marshall Forever program.

"I love the fact that Marshall isn't just thinking about Marshall, but it's also trying to be a prosperity platform to help students get meaningful jobs post-graduation," Lee said.

"It's trying to help increase the regional societal success."

Lee lights up as she talks about Marshall and the path it is forging in a time when there is a lot of u