Blog / Board
Startup Boards: VCs and CEOs Need To Do Their Jobs
A great board is one of a company’s greatest assets. A weak board can kill a company. It’s time to hit the reset button on boards and board meetings.
Don’t Ask Your Board for a Strategy
You want your board to support and buy into the strategy you present to them, but you don’t want them to actually define that strategy.
Startup Boards, the book, and also why they matter more than ever these days
We’ve done a lot of work around startup boards at Bolster the past couple of years, including working with over 30 CEOs to help them hire amazing new independent board members.
Women Are (Slowly) Gaining Board Seats
Over the past several years, there has been a lot of public attention surrounding board diversity
7 Habits of Highly Effective Boards
Creating strong boards can help propel a board forward. Weak and ineffective boards hold a company back.
Our Ebook: How to Succeed in Your First Board Role
Over the past several months, we’ve published a series of posts designed to help CEOs better understand how to build, diversify, and scale their boards of directors.
Our Ebook: How to Build Your Board
Over the past several months, we’ve published a series of posts designed to help CEOs better understand how to build, diversify, and scale their boards of directors.
How to know if you're doing a good job as a Board Member
On many boards there isn’t a formal review process for board members.
How to Evaluate Your Board
A lot of CEOs think it’s pointless to give board members any feedback, but failure to do so is just as big a miss as failure to give your staff feedback or failing to ask your staff for feedback.
How to Build a Bench or Advisory Board
Advisory Boards can be great sources of help for entrepreneurs. They can also be great things to participate in for people who want to understand and become involved in startups
How to Compensate Independent Directors
There are several elements of a compensation package you need to know about for an independent board member
Luminary: Finding your Seat in the Board Room
Listen to Bolster CEO Matt Blumberg and Bolster board member Cristina Miller talking with Luminary CEO Cate Luzio.
The Important Role Independent Directors Play on Impacting Private Company Board Diversity
Here is a presentation from a webinar I did today on Key Strategies for Increasing Board Diversity.
How to Onboard Directors, Especially First-time Directors
I’ve often said that the hiring process doesn’t end on the employee’s first day. The same goes for new board members -- you have to take their onboarding as seriously as you take their hiring process.
Recap: ICYMI - Watch the Panel: Flipping the Script on Private Board Diversity
Last week, we released results from our Board Benchmarking Study, which uncovered that only 1 in 3 companies has an independent director on their board.
How to be a Great Board Member
A board role differs from other roles in business and no matter how accomplished you are in your professional career, being a “great” board member is not just a continuation of what worked for you before.
How to Think About Corporate Governance as a Board Member
I’ve always believed that there is a sliding scale of Board member duties that changes dramatically as companies grow in size.
How to Prepare for Your First Board Role
Here is a presentation from a webinar I did today with our partners at Ellevate and Women in the Boardroom that ties a lot of the material together across all the posts.
Preparing for your first board meeting
Depending on your situation, your first board meeting might actually be your second board meeting. I strongly encouraged CEOs to be just as thorough in interviewing and onboarding a new board member as they would an executive hire
What You Need to Know About Board Compensation
Independent directors in privately held early-stage companies are compensated for their board contributions, just like they are in publicly traded companies, although the numbers and currencies are not the same.
My new Startup Board Mantra: 1-1-1
Of all the board searches we are running at Bolster, about ⅔ of them are open to taking on first-time directors; and almost all are committed to increasing diversity on their boards.
A Declaration of Independents: The Important Role Independent Directors Play on Diversifying & Strengthening Private Company Boards
Today we’re excited to announce preliminary results from Bolster’s Board Benchmarking survey, our analysis of 250 private company boards.
Interviewing for a Board Role
Startup Boards for CXOs Series: Post 4 of 12. By the time you get to the interview stage for a board role, you’ve already been vetted to some degree. Like other high-profile jobs you should take the interview for a board role seriously, and you should be as prepared as possible.
Diversity in the Boardroom & the Importance of Appointing First-Time Directors
Some people, when looking back at 2020, will remark what a difficult, turbulent year it was. I’m hopeful that founding teams and startups will look at 2020 and say, “that’s the year we drew a line in the sand and started diversifying our board. It was the best decision we ever made.”
Should You Serve on an Advisory Board?
Startup Boards for CXOs Series: Post 3 of 12. I’m often asked by accomplished executives how to get on a board and I always tell them that one of the best ways to build your “board readiness” skills is to get in the game. An advisory board role is an excellent way to do that.