Lisa Michelle Borders (born c. 1958) is the former president and chief executive officer of Time's Up and former president of the

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...

(WNBA).

Early life and education

Lisa Borders was born in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. She attended

Atlanta Public Schools Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is a school district based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is run by the Atlanta Board of Education with superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring. The system has an active enrollment of 54,956 students, attending a t ...

, and later

The Westminster Schools The Westminster Schools is a Kindergarten –12 private school in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, founded in 1951. History Westminster originated in 1951 as a reorganization of Atlanta's North Avenue Presbyterian School (NAPS), a girls' school a ...

in 1965 after her parents wanted a more academically challenging environment for her. At Westminster, she was one of seven African-American students on campus and fellow students were often hostile. Borders is the granddaughter of civil rights leader Rev.

William Holmes Borders Rev. William Holmes Borders, Sr (24 February 1905 – 23 November 1993) was a civil rights activist and leader and pastor of Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia from 1937 to 1988. Borders' influence in the black community was the trigge ...

, pastor of Atlanta's

Wheat Street Baptist Church Wheat Street Baptist Church is a historic black Baptist church located in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1869, the current building was constructed in 1921 and is located adjacent to the Martin Luther King Jr. Nat ...

. Borders obtained a bachelor's degree from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and a Masters of Science in health administration from the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

. She serves on the Duke University Board of Trustees. As an undergraduate, she joined

Alpha Kappa Alpha Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. () is the first intercollegiate historically African American sorority. The sorority was founded on January 15, 1908, at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C., by a group of sixteen stud ...

sorority.

Career

Borders was the president of the Henry W. Grady Health System Foundation where she led a five-year $325 million capital campaign before serving with the Atlanta city council. From 2004 to 2010, she was president of the

Atlanta City Council The Atlanta City Council is the main municipal legislative body for the city of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It consists of 16 members primarily elected from 12 districts within the city. The Atlanta City Government is divided into three bo ...

of Atlanta, Georgia, having been elected at-large in an August 10, 2004

special election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-larges ...

, her first run for public office. Her duties included presiding over and maintaining relationships with the city government. She was a candidate for

mayor of Atlanta Here is a list of mayors of Atlanta, Georgia. The mayor is the highest elected official in Atlanta. Since its incorporation in 1847, the city has had 61 mayors. The current mayor is Andre Dickens who was elected in the 2021 election and took of ...

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. On November 11, 2009, Borders endorsed mayoral candidate

Kasim Reed Mohammed Kasim Reed (born June 10, 1969) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 59th mayor of Atlanta, Georgia's state capital and largest city, from 2010 to 2018. A Democrat, Reed was a member of the Georgia House of Represen ...

for the runoff election, occurring between Reed and

Mary Norwood Mary Norwood (born 1952) is an American businesswoman and politician who is a member of the Atlanta City Council. She was a candidate for mayor of Atlanta in 2009 and 2017. In both campaigns she advanced to the runoff, but respectively lost ...

on December 1, 2009. Borders was succeeded in office by

Ceasar Mitchell Ceasar C. Mitchell (born 1968), is an American politician and attorney who served as President of Atlanta City Council from 2010 to 2018. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2017 Atlanta mayoral election. Early life and education Mitchell is ...

. In 2010, Borders became a founding leader of

No Labels No Labels is an American political organization that supports centrist, bi-partisan policies and politics. The group promoted and helped to start the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives It has also built a simi ...

, a

501(c)(4) A 501(c) organization is a nonprofit organization in the Law of the United States#Federal law, federal law of the United States according to Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 501(c)) and is one of over 29 types of nonprofit organizations exe ...

citizens movement of Republicans, Democrats and Independents whose mission is to address the politics of problem solving. Borders was the vice president of global community affairs at

The Coca-Cola Company The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation founded in 1892, best known as the producer of Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, ...

before becoming the fourth president of the

(WNBA) on February 10, 2016. As president, she established live streaming games on Twitter and launched the WNBA's one-day fantasy game. In 2017, the league recorded its highest attendance rate and the season was its most-watched in four years. She also served as the league's public face, hosting press conferences and doing a variety of interviews. In October 2018, Borders left the league to become the first president and

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Time's Up. In February 2019, she abruptly left her position at Time's Up due to sexual misconduct accusations against her son.

Recognition

In 2018, Borders was named by

People magazine ''People'' is an American weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC (company), IAC. With a readership of 46.6 million adults in 2009, ''People ...

as one of their 25 Women Changing the World.

References

External links

WNBA biography
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Borders, Lisa African-American city council members in Georgia (U.S. state) Women in American professional sports management Atlanta City Council members Duke University alumni Living people African-American women in politics Women city councillors in Georgia (U.S. state) Women's National Basketball Association commissioners Women basketball executives The Westminster Schools alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women