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The Role of the Independent Director

For the purposes of this post, I’m referring to a member of the board of directors of a company that does:

Offer uninfluenced (by money, power or competition) opinions regarding the company’s strategy, tactics and overall execution decisions. Bring related wisdom gained through experience in the market, product, service, management or company structure. [...]

Every Company Needs a Board of Directors – Startups Too

OK, maybe not every company. Raw startups – two people in a garage kinda thing – shouldn’t waste their time with anything formal. But young companies – those that are established and on their way, regardless of their size or level of funding should, as should any company more established than that. It [...]

Avoid Negotiating by Proxy

In my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to have sold a handful of public and private companies that I was running at the time and acquire about a dozen others.  Looking back, the activities and process around mergers and acquisitions may have been the most fun I ever had as CEO.  Probably even more fun than [...]

Communicating with Your Board: The Summary

This is the fourth and final post (for now) in my series on communicating with your board.  You can find the previous posts here, here and here.

As a corporate director, I wince when I get a board package that opens up with a stack of detailed group-level reports and loads of spreadsheets containing [...]

Communicating with Your Board: At-A-Glance Financial Information

This is the third post in my series on communicating with your board.  You can find the previous posts here and here.

Consolodating key financial information on a single page is a great tool for communicating some of the most important data about the company in a quickly-grasped snapshot.  Because of this, it’s not only [...]

Communicating with Your Board: Equity Grants

As your company grows, you’ll find yourself frequently seeking approval for grants of equity from your board.  Most often, the desired grants will be for new employees, but you’ll also want to use equity to recognize and retain existing employees, consultants, advisors and even your board members.  Since many grants will be made, it’s important [...]

Communicating with Your Board: Sales Numbers

I’ve mentioned before that it’s likely that your board remembers less about your business between meetings than you think.  As much as you think that your business is the most important thing in the world to them, your directors are probably on more than one board and many are on several at any given time.  [...]

Do Boards of Advisors Work?

I have never seen a board of advisors work after the initial few meetings. I’m sure there are cases where they are managed well and it works out, but for the most part, my experience is that any initial engagement and excitement wanes and the value diminishes fairly quickly.

I think that the reason [...]

Accepting a Seat on a Board

The first time I was presented with an opportunity to join a board, I was so flattered that I agreed to join without really considering whether it was right for me to do so.  That is, right for the company and right for me.  Luckily, it was a strong board and while I don’t [...]

Board Meeting Attendance and Frequency

Fred Wilson has a great post today on his blog, AVC, titled, Required Attendance Board Meetings.  In the post, Fred discusses his thoughts on face-to-face meetings of which he is in favor and I strongly agree; the frequency of meetings for companies with respect to their maturity – more for younger companies, fewer [...]