In addition to our work on helping CEOs understand board-building best practices, we’ve spent the past several months publishing blog posts to help current and aspiring board directors understand the behind-the-scenes details of private company board service.
When we published the findings of our Board Benchmarking study, we revealed that 4 out of 5 seats on private company boards today are held by individuals who are White, and 86% of director seats are held by men.
And we also learned that 2 out of 3 CEOs are open to bringing on first-time directors to their boards, largely to help add some much-needed diversity to the most senior ranks of corporate service. To assist current and aspiring board directors out there, we decided to aggregate our team’s collective brainpower to shed light on how to get recruited for a board role, what to expect once you’re there, and how to make an impact.
You can see the full list of blog posts here:
- Introduction to Startup Boards
- How to Prepare Yourself to Get on Your First Board
- Should You Serve on an Advisory Board?
- Interviewing for a Board Role
- What You Need to Know About Board Compensation
- Preparing for Your First Board Meeting
- Corporate Governance as a Board Member
- How to Be a Great Board Member
- When Things Aren’t Black and White: How to Deal with Murky Areas
- Giving Difficult Feedback and Making Your Voice Heard
- How to Know if You’re Doing a Good Job as a Board Member
Since we’ve reached the conclusion of our first phase of research and best practices around private company boards, we’ve completed these posts into an Ebook, How to Succeed in Your First Board Role.
We hope this book helps inspire and empower you on your own journey as a board director. And if you’d like to get access to more exclusive content like this and be considered for a board role in the future, you can sign up as a Bolster member here.
-Bethany Crystal, July 29, 2021
