Since retiring from IBM last year, Rusine Mitchell Sinclair has not been relaxing in the garden or taking up painting. Instead, she has been busy at the helm of the Girl Scouts, North Carolina Coastal Pines, managing the small team of staff and large group of volunteers that organise events for girls between the ages of five and 17 in central and eastern North Carolina.

Ms Mitchell Sinclair’s role in the non-profit sector is a far cry from her job at IBM as vice-president and senior state executive. “In some ways it’s going back to the kind of work I did earlier in my career, where I did more of the arms and legs work,” she says. “And at IBM there was a long line of people behind me. Here the line is pretty short.”