Podcasts about effective board

What if your board meetings were the most energizing hour of your month?Too often, board meetings become routine report-outs instead of spaces for real governance, strategy, and alignment. In this episode, Nancy and Sarah break down how to design meetings that are inclusive, purposeful, and focused on the conversations only the board can have.They share practical guidance on naming the purpose of each meeting, building trust and participation, using consent agendas, and strengthening the partnership between the board chair and Executive Director. What if your board adopted Sarah's 30 minutes at 30,000 feet? What would you talk about? Whether your meetings feel flat or you're simply ready to raise the bar, this episode will help you rethink what a board meeting can be.Question to consider before listening:How would you like board members to leave your board meetings? Enjoyed this episode? Share it with a friend. Want to request a topic? Email us at nonprofitradioshow@gmail.com.You can also follow us on these social media channels: Facebook: www.facebook.com/nonprofitradioshow Instagram: www.instagram.com/nonprofitradioshow Twitter: @smallnonprofits LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/nonprofit-radio-show/ You got this.

Board directors operate in an environment of high complexity and volatility. The question isn't whether crises will occur—it's whether directors have the skills, judgment, and relationships to navigate them effectively.In this episode of Leadership Lounge, we talk to two of our trusted advisors—Gwenael Quere and Ted Dysart—who share their perspectives on:The key skills effective board directors utilize during periods of sustained uncertaintyWhen it's appropriate to step in versus trust management to handle critical decisionsHow to balance individual perspective with building board consensus during volatile momentsThe best approach for managing competing demands when serving on multiple boards facing simultaneous challenges"One key trait is being able to ask the right questions, but also ask those questions in the right way. If a director gets into a meeting and starts asking questions that feel like a trap, the management team will just shut down."-Ted Dysart Leadership Advisor, Russell Reynolds AssociatesFour things you'll learn from this episodeStaying calm, exercising sound judgment, and leading with empathy are three essential traits needed by board directors to effectively navigate volatility.How to get the balance right between being deeply informed and engaged without crossing the line into managing the business during a crisis. Why you must support your CEO's wellbeing during prolonged stress. A CEO who can't think clearly is a risk to the entire organization.Structured post-crisis reflection builds organizational resilience—boards that capture and institutionalize lessons from crisis experiences perform better in the future.In this episode, we will cover:(01.50) The key skills board directors should utilize during sustained volatility(03.31) The art of asking the right questions without creating traps for management(05.44) How to decide when to step in versus when to let management handle critical decisions(09.45) Balancing individual perspective with creating board consensus during periods of volatility(11.16) How to manage time and energy when serving on multiple boards facing simultaneous challenges(13.42) How directors can remain mentally sharp and objective during prolonged uncertainty(15.28) Why directors should never let a good crisis go to waste

Send us a textIn this episode of The Difference podcast, Host Jay Werth is joined by Convergent's Pam Reid and Andy Brubaker to discuss Effective Board Management. Topics discussed include: Governance vs. management (setting boundaries)Clarifying roles and responsibilitiesEffective use of committees and task forcesAssessing performance & handling underperformanceKeeping members engaged and developing their leadershipIf you enjoyed this episode, we invite you to join us for our upcoming webinar "Board Members' Role in Fundraising" on November 13 at 1:30 PM ET. Register Now!

Did you know that running a booster club board meeting is a lot like managing a business? Clear rules, defined roles, and structured discussions lead to real results. One key to success is Robert's Rules of Order, a time-tested framework that helps meetings stay on track, make informed decisions, and avoid unnecessary chaos.  In this episode of The Boosted Volunteer, host Robin Eissler sits down with Jim Buchanan—adjunct professor at UMHB, founder of Brighter Honor Consulting, and former AT&T director—to share expert strategies for running efficient, organized, and results-driven board meetings. Jim emphasizes the importance of preparation for effective meetings, where decisions are made rather than learning new information. He advocates for forming committees to streamline discussions and prevent endless debates. Jim also stresses the need to train new board members on Robert's Rules of Order using bylaws, policy manuals, and online resources. A well-prepared board chair leads confidently, improving decision-making and operations. Jim and Robyn also reflect on their volunteer experiences, highlighting teamwork and patience. Jim's background in theater and leadership with children's activities contributed to his booster club's success.  Key Takeaways: 2:46 Importance of Robert's Rules of Order:  Jim explains Robert's Rules of Order 4:24 Structure and Organization in Nonprofit Meetings: Jim emphasizes the importance of having a structured meeting to prevent chaos and ensure productivity 7:29 Managing Unexpected Topics During a Meeting:  Jim suggests using a "parking lot" to address out-of-agenda items later in the meeting, helping to maintain focus on the primary agenda. 8:34 Ideal Meeting Structure: Jim outlines the key components of a board meeting, including preparation, organizing logistics, staying on time, and maintaining accurate meeting minutes. 10:06 What Should and Should Not Be on the Agenda: Jim explains what items belong on a typical agenda, stressing the importance of staying focused on the key topics relevant to the meeting. 12:00 Common Mistakes in Parliamentary Procedure: Jim highlights a common mistake in meetings 21:31 Robert's Rules of Order: Training new board members with bylaws and Robert's Rules of Order is essential    Resources: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-buchanan-cam-c-p-m-58a65123/  

On this episode of the President's Gavel Podcast, it's all about communication. We'll discuss navigating difficult conversations and maintaining a strong relationship with the Margaretville Central School's board president and superintendent. Join your NYSSBA hosts as they lead Board President Doris Warner and Superintendent Michelle Osterhoudt through a conversation about how they effectively work together through the easy and not-so-easy times. Hosts: Jamie McPherson, Deputy Director of Leadership Development, NYSSBA Mark Snyder, Senior Leadership Development Manager, NYSSBA Guests: Michelle Osterhoudt, Superintendent, Margaretville Central School District Doris Warner, Board President, Margaretville Central School District Resources: Schedule your Custom Board Retreat today! bit.ly/30NAX7l On Board Articles: 7 Ways to build the board-superintendent relationship: https://bit.ly/3EdYtDp 10 ways your board can communicate better: https://bit.ly/4h7NolR Establishing a strong board-superintendent relationship: https://bit.ly/3CeAvY7 For better board-supt. relations, clarify: https://bit.ly/4hy4fhm How to have a difficult conversation: https://bit.ly/4hu3F4k Moving from conflict to consensus: bit.ly/4hnxDak Understanding the board-superintendent relationship: bit.ly/3CCsFHE Stock media provided by www.pond5.com

"Boards are a social dynamic where you want to not only have a great environment, but also to use every minute wisely." - Catherine Brenner Catherine Brenner, Chair of Australian Payments Plus and director of Scentre Group, Emmi and The George Institute for Global Health discusses the essential elements of running effective board meetings including pre-meeting preparation, managing meeting flow, handling disruptions, and the value of post-meeting reviews. _____________ Follow Podcast Host ⁠⁠⁠⁠Richard Conway⁠⁠⁠⁠ on LinkedIn Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠boardcycle⁠⁠⁠⁠ on LinkedIn Visit the ⁠⁠⁠⁠boardcycle website

Kelly Maynard is a cooperative development specialist at the university of Wisconsin center for cooperative development and we're going to get into some practical advice and tools you can use when thinking about going into cooperative farming, yourself, or yourselves, as it were. This is the second coop development person, or forth depending on how you define that role, I've had on this season to, if nothing else, drive the point home that there are people out there who's life work it is support the development of your “working together” ideas. Not only do you not have to farm alone, you don't have to build cooperative systems alone. Mentioned in the show... Farm Commons resource on FSA farm ownership loans Farm Commons and UWCC toolkit on sharing labor Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making UWCC recorded webinars, see Tools for an Effective Board and Decision-Making Tools for the Board Room Folks who support Collab Farm Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply is your one-stop shop for cover crops, soil amendments, tools, and more. Save 20% on your first order now with code: NOTILL24. Apply for a commercial account for year-round savings and dedicated support! Visit Groworganic.com/notill ASAP (Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project) will offer the Business of Farming Conference on Saturday, February 22, in Asheville, North Carolina. Find out more at asapconnections.org Farmhand enables you to offload your administrative tasks, send and manage communications, and sell more to your customers. Learn more and book a free test drive at farmhand.partners/notill High Mowing Organic Seeds has the professional quality seeds and supportive grower reps to get you from seed to harvest. Visit highmowingseeds.com to request a catalog and use code NOTILL25 for 10% off your order of $100 or more!

Kelly Maynard is a cooperative development specialist at the university of Wisconsin center for cooperative development and we're going to get into some practical advice and tools you can use when thinking about going into cooperative farming, yourself, or yourselves, as it were. This is the second coop development person, or forth depending on how you define that role, I've had on this season to, if nothing else, drive the point home that there are people out there who's life work it is support the development of your “working together” ideas. Not only do you not have to farm alone, you don't have to build cooperative systems alone. Mentioned in the show... Farm Commons resource on FSA farm ownership loans Farm Commons and UWCC toolkit on sharing labor Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making UWCC recorded webinars, see Tools for an Effective Board and Decision-Making Tools for the Board Room Folks who support Collab Farm Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply is your one-stop shop for cover crops, soil amendments, tools, and more. Save 20% on your first order now with code: NOTILL24. Apply for a commercial account for year-round savings and dedicated support! Visit Groworganic.com/notill ASAP (Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project) will offer the Business of Farming Conference on Saturday, February 22, in Asheville, North Carolina. Find out more at asapconnections.org Farmhand enables you to offload your administrative tasks, send and manage communications, and sell more to your customers. Learn more and book a free test drive at farmhand.partners/notill High Mowing Organic Seeds has the professional quality seeds and supportive grower reps to get you from seed to harvest. Visit highmowingseeds.com to request a catalog and use code NOTILL25 for 10% off your order of $100 or more!

In the first episode of season 9, Douglas Nelson sits down with Alex Wilson to explore the makings of an effective board retreat . Whether you're a CEO preparing for your retreat or a board member seeking insights, this conversation offers valuable advice and practical tips. Douglas Nelson and Alex Wilson share their experiences and strategies to ensure your next board retreat is not only successful but also sets the stage for a productive year ahead. Tune in to discover how to plan and deliver a board retreat that drives real results!

In this episode, Chris discusses four key elements that make board meetings effective and mission-driven. By adopting these principles, your board meetings can become even more impactful, helping you accomplish your mission with greater purpose.Show Notes & Resources: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1531BAhuDzb95XjP9ZJQY0q_dOwji75Gl/view?usp=share_link

[Re-Air] In today's episode, I'm speaking with Keys Fillauer, 2021 President-Elect and Board Chairman of the Oak Ridge Board of Education, as he discusses the top attributes needed to be an effective board chairman. The chairman carries a heavy responsibility, and certain skills and actions are required in order for the chairman to conduct his/her duties in an efficient manner.

Invest Like the Best Key Takeaways  Leaders must “work up” through osmosis; do not assume that your messages are distributed throughout the company without intention and effort  Most organizations tell the leadership team what they want to hear; this can prevent the executive team from actually understanding what is happening within their own company The most effective ways to communicate are through stories, celebration, and recognition Great leaders are high energy and are willing to tolerate disagreementAs a leader, people want a piece of you; you must think about how you show them that you are invested in their success Leaders must be open to understanding what they do not know Every employee should understand what their CEO wants from them “To be a successful leader, you got to allocate capital right and allocate human resources right. If you do those two things right, everything else will fall into place. If you do them wrong – you can do everything else right, you can have great culture, all the rest – it's not going to matter.” – Frank Blake Vision is powerful, but execution is even more so powerful Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgMy guest today is Frank Blake. Frank is the former chairman and CEO of Home Depot. I recently interviewed Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and became fascinated by the business's impressive lineup of leaders through the decades. Frank led the company from 2007 to 2014 and shares how he carried on the legacy of Ken and the others, upholding their culture of an inverted hierarchy and producing seven consecutive years of growth for the largest home improvement retailer in America. We discuss his hyper focus on solving their customer's problems before their own, investing time into the employee experience, and his intentionality with how he is perceived as a leader. Please enjoy this discussion with Frank Blake. Listen to Founders Podcast For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, where we're changing the game in investment research. Step away from outdated, inefficient methods and into the future with our platform, proudly hosting over 100,000 transcripts – with over 25,000 transcripts added just this year alone. Our platform grows eight times faster and adds twice as much monthly content as our competitors, putting us at the forefront of the industry. Plus, with 75% of private market transcripts available exclusively on Tegus, we offer insights you simply can't find elsewhere. See the difference a vast, quality-driven transcript library makes. Unlock your free trial at tegus.com/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:04:37) The Inverted Pyramid Leadership Model (00:08:38) Communication and Listening in Leadership (00:15:19) Lessons from Legacies of Great Home Depot Leaders (00:27:02) Frank's Personal Leadership Journey (00:33:32) Reagan's Leadership Style and Influence (00:37:26) Key Responsibilities of a CEO (00:40:27) Delta's Leadership During COVID-19 (00:46:45) Financial Strategies in Asset-Intensive Industries (00:47:27) Home Depot's Strategic Shift (00:53:33) Competitive Dynamics with Lowe's (00:55:36) Building an Effective Board (00:58:16) The Impact of Home Depot on Employees' Lives (01:01:52) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done for Frank

Invest Like the Best Key Takeaways  Leaders must “work up” through osmosis; do not assume that your messages are distributed throughout the company without intention and effort  Most organizations tell the leadership team what they want to hear; this can prevent the executive team from actually understanding what is happening within their own company The most effective ways to communicate are through stories, celebration, and recognition Great leaders are high energy and are willing to tolerate disagreementAs a leader, people want a piece of you; you must think about how you show them that you are invested in their success Leaders must be open to understanding what they do not know Every employee should understand what their CEO wants from them “To be a successful leader, you got to allocate capital right and allocate human resources right. If you do those two things right, everything else will fall into place. If you do them wrong – you can do everything else right, you can have great culture, all the rest – it's not going to matter.” – Frank Blake Vision is powerful, but execution is even more so powerful Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgMy guest today is Frank Blake. Frank is the former chairman and CEO of Home Depot. I recently interviewed Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and became fascinated by the business's impressive lineup of leaders through the decades. Frank led the company from 2007 to 2014 and shares how he carried on the legacy of Ken and the others, upholding their culture of an inverted hierarchy and producing seven consecutive years of growth for the largest home improvement retailer in America. We discuss his hyper focus on solving their customer's problems before their own, investing time into the employee experience, and his intentionality with how he is perceived as a leader. Please enjoy this discussion with Frank Blake. Listen to Founders Podcast For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, where we're changing the game in investment research. Step away from outdated, inefficient methods and into the future with our platform, proudly hosting over 100,000 transcripts – with over 25,000 transcripts added just this year alone. Our platform grows eight times faster and adds twice as much monthly content as our competitors, putting us at the forefront of the industry. Plus, with 75% of private market transcripts available exclusively on Tegus, we offer insights you simply can't find elsewhere. See the difference a vast, quality-driven transcript library makes. Unlock your free trial at tegus.com/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:04:37) The Inverted Pyramid Leadership Model (00:08:38) Communication and Listening in Leadership (00:15:19) Lessons from Legacies of Great Home Depot Leaders (00:27:02) Frank's Personal Leadership Journey (00:33:32) Reagan's Leadership Style and Influence (00:37:26) Key Responsibilities of a CEO (00:40:27) Delta's Leadership During COVID-19 (00:46:45) Financial Strategies in Asset-Intensive Industries (00:47:27) Home Depot's Strategic Shift (00:53:33) Competitive Dynamics with Lowe's (00:55:36) Building an Effective Board (00:58:16) The Impact of Home Depot on Employees' Lives (01:01:52) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done for Frank

My guest today is Frank Blake. Frank is the former chairman and CEO of Home Depot. I recently interviewed Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and became fascinated by the business's impressive lineup of leaders through the decades. Frank led the company from 2007 to 2014 and shares how he carried on the legacy of Ken and the others, upholding their culture of an inverted hierarchy and producing seven consecutive years of growth for the largest home improvement retailer in America. We discuss his hyper focus on solving their customer's problems before their own, investing time into the employee experience, and his intentionality with how he is perceived as a leader. Please enjoy this discussion with Frank Blake. Listen to Founders Podcast For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, where we're changing the game in investment research. Step away from outdated, inefficient methods and into the future with our platform, proudly hosting over 100,000 transcripts – with over 25,000 transcripts added just this year alone. Our platform grows eight times faster and adds twice as much monthly content as our competitors, putting us at the forefront of the industry. Plus, with 75% of private market transcripts available exclusively on Tegus, we offer insights you simply can't find elsewhere. See the difference a vast, quality-driven transcript library makes. Unlock your free trial at tegus.com/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:04:37) The Inverted Pyramid Leadership Model (00:08:38) Communication and Listening in Leadership (00:15:19) Lessons from Legacies of Great Home Depot Leaders (00:27:02) Frank's Personal Leadership Journey (00:33:32) Reagan's Leadership Style and Influence (00:37:26) Key Responsibilities of a CEO (00:40:27) Delta's Leadership During COVID-19 (00:46:45) Financial Strategies in Asset-Intensive Industries (00:47:27) Home Depot's Strategic Shift (00:53:33) Competitive Dynamics with Lowe's (00:55:36) Building an Effective Board (00:58:16) The Impact of Home Depot on Employees' Lives (01:01:52) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done for Frank

257: The Secret to Effective Board/CEO Partnerships (Jonathan Schick)SUMMARYAre you a nonprofit leader grappling with the intricacies of the board/CEO relationship? In episode 257 of Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership, Jonathan Schick, author of The Nonprofit Secret: Six Principles of Successful Board/CEO Partnerships, shares keys to fostering strong partnerships between boards and CEOs, essential for organizational success. Delving into real-world scenarios, Jonathan highlights governance challenges, emphasizing the pivotal role of clear delineation of responsibilities within boards. He dissects six fundamental principles for effective governance, from committee management to CEO evaluation, offering actionable strategies for nonprofit leaders. Jonathan explores the transformative power of CEO evaluations and board self-appraisals in driving accountability and organizational improvement. From establishing clear goals to implementing effective evaluation processes, this conversation provides invaluable guidance for nonprofit leaders striving to achieve their missions effectively.ABOUT JONATHANJonathan Schick believes in the power of effective leaders to unify movements and create community impact. He is a dynamic leadership consultant and nationally known speaker who has founded two successful nonprofits and consulted for hundreds of organizations. As president of GOAL Consulting Group with offices in Washington and Dallas, Jonathan's clients include the Boys and Girls Clubs, University of North Texas, Cancer Support Community, major Independent Schools, and national associations. The author of The Nonprofit Secret: Six Principles of Successful Board/CEO Partnerships, Jonathan earned a Master's degree in Educational Administration from Boston College, along with a Bachelor's degree in Human Resources Management.EPISODE TOPICS & RESOURCESMan's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl Learn more about Jonathan here.Ready for a Mastermind?  Learn more here!Have you read Patton's book Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership: Seven Keys to Advancing Your Career in the Philanthropic Sector?

A continuation from episode 78- click here if you haven't heard PART ONE yet. https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/ZWaQ3Chl9Hb Nonprofit work and getting to change lives every day seems like a dream job until you read the fine print. Kimberly Thomas is hear to help us discover how to effectively work with a board of directors/leadership and how to activate engagement. Expect to hear:  What exactly should boards be doing for an organization? How to integrate new board members effectively What if board members aren't a good fit? Importance of a good board chair How does the board support the ED? Conversations around setting non-profit professionals' salaries.  Kimberly Thomas is the Executive Director of EPIC for Girls in Omaha, NE.  Ms. Thomas brings more than 25 years of experience in the non-profit sector.  Her passion is ensuring executive directors and boards are equipped with the tools necessary to succeed and helping them to step into their roles with confidence.  Learn more about EPIC for Girls here:  www.epicforgirls.org Get the Non-Profit Director Evaluation Form by becoming a member at Patreon.  Click here for more information: https://www.patreon.com/notjustaponyride This episode is proudly sponsored by Teaching Aids for EAS. Use code “HETRA” for 10% off your order now through May 10, 2024.  https://teachingaidsforeas.com/ Follow us on social:  https://notjustaponyride.my.canva.site/linkinbio

PART ONE:  Nonprofit work and getting to change lives every day seems like a dream job until you read the fine print. Kimberly Thomas is hear to help us discover how to effectively work with a board of directors/leadership and how to activate engagement. Expect to hear:  Variety of “types” of boards How your board changes as your organization grows Thoughts on Board Term Limits How to “evaluate” your board members: “Report Cards” Setting up expectations -- and more! Kimberly Thomas is the Executive Director of EPIC for Girls in Omaha, NE.  Ms. Thomas brings more than 25 years of experience in the non-profit sector.  Her passion is ensuring executive directors and boards are equipped with the tools necessary to succeed and helping them to step into their roles with confidence.  Learn more about EPIC for Girls here:  www.epicforgirls.org This episode is proudly sponsored by Teaching Aids for EAS. Use code “HETRA” for 10% off your order now through May 10, 2024.  https://teachingaidsforeas.com/ Follow us on social:  https://notjustaponyride.my.canva.site/linkinbio

Nick is joined by Callum Laing, who shares insights from his experience in setting up boards for successful exits and emphasises the importance of having a diverse and effective board in place. They discuss the value of advisory boards, the journey to becoming a board member, and the steps individuals can take to join boards successfully. Callum also introduces his upcoming book, "The Boardroom Blueprint," which provides a guide for individuals looking to enter the world of board membership.  GRAB A FREE COPY of "The Boardroom Blueprint" using this link: https://boardroom-blueprint.com/nb/ KEY TAKEAWAYS Building Connections: Start by deliberately building connections with people already on boards to increase your chances of joining a board. Knowledge: Gain awareness of key themes like ESG and diversity to speak the language and understand board governance. Profile: Update your profile to reflect your board involvement, which can change how your network perceives you and open up new opportunities. Value: Focus on delivering value as a board member by thinking holistically about the business and finding ways to contribute effectively. Progression: Approach board positions as stepping stones, starting with advisory roles and apprentice boards to gain experience and build credibility before moving up to larger boards. BEST MOMENTS "I think the biggest thing for people to get their heads around is, agreeing to work for free. I keep pointing out it's not for free, it's for credibility." "The biggest thing for people to get their heads around is, agreeing to work for free. I keep pointing out it's not for free, it's for credibility."  "If I see something that you haven't seen, and you win and I win, right, so rev shares or whatever else, or certainly equity."  VALUABLE RESOURCES Find out now if you're building a high-value, exitable business (even if you have no immediate plans to sell it). You'll get an instant PDF report with powerful insights specifically tailored to your business in just 4 minutes. https://highvalueexit.scoreapp.com/ Work with Nick: https://highvalueexit.com  Nick's Facebook: https://highvalueexit.com/fb Nick's LinkedIn: https://highvalueexit.com/li Nick's Instagram: https://highvalueexit.com/ig Nick Bradley is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and business growth expert. His background is growing and scaling Venture Capital and Private Equity backed businesses globally. Over the last decade, he has completed 117 acquisitions and 25 business exits with a combined valuation of over $5bn dollars. His mission is to help business founders build valuable businesses and create life-changing exits so they can realise freedom, wealth, and impact.Nick Bradley- exit, strategy, podcast, business, scale, scale up, growth, equity, high-value, wealth, sell, sold: https://highvalueexit.com/

It's YOUR time to #EdUp In this episode,  YOUR guest is Herman Bulls, Vice Chairman Americas, JLL YOUR host is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dr. Bill Pepicello, former President at the University of Phoenix & host of EdUp Insights! YOUR sponsors are Ellucian Live 2024 & InsightsEDU  What are some insider tips on constructing a high-performing yet sustainable board? What are a few innovative ways higher education can generate revenue through strategic partnerships & leveraging existing assets? Why do major private equity firms still see higher education as a worthwhile long-term investment, even with current headwinds? Listen in to #EdUp! Thank YOU so much for tuning in. Join us on the next episode for YOUR time to EdUp! Connect with YOUR EdUp Team - ⁠⁠⁠Elvin Freytes⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠Dr. Joe Sallustio⁠⁠⁠ ● Join YOUR EdUp community at ⁠⁠⁠The EdUp Experience⁠⁠⁠! We make education YOUR business! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/edup/message

In this essential Bonus Break episode, Dolph delves into the secret sauce of exceptional board member onboarding. Discover the transformative Triple-I approach - Inform, Initiate, and Inspire - and learn how to elevate your organization's onboarding process from mediocre to magnificent. Join Dolph as he shares personal experiences, debunks common onboarding myths, and provides actionable strategies to enhance your orientation process and the effectiveness of your new board members. Whether you're grappling with uninspiring onboarding or looking to create a board orientation from scratch, this episode is a must-listen for nonprofit leaders needing a dynamic and impactful board. Contact Dolph or Lexie about board onboarding Listen to the prior Bonus Break about onboarding on – Revolutionize Your Board Onboarding Process – on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  Read the blog post that this bonus break is based on.

Everyone's talking about what went down at OpenAI - but what does it mean for ethical and responsible AI, and what are the lessons for entrepreneurs on startup board governance? With the abrupt dismissal of CEO Sam Altman, questions loom over the stability and direction of one of AI's most influential entities. Let's uncover the twists and turns in this high-stakes boardroom drama.Why was Sam Altman abruptly dismissed - only to be brought back again? What role did board member Helen Toner and the responsible AI community play in the firings? Who is on deck next as the newest members of the board - and who else should OpenAI consider bringing? What choices face Sam Altman - and key partner at Microsoft Satya Nadella - and what should these leaders do next? Finally, what can the AI and startup communities learn from how it all went down?Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya give us their timely takes on what happened at OpenAI. With incisive commentary and expert insights, they explore the events leading to Altman's sacking and the broader implications for AI governance. Note this episode was recorded on November 27th, 2023, and published on December 1st, 2023 so it may not reflect the most current developments at OpenAI.Read Tom Chavez's op-ed in Tech Crunch on the need for an interdisciplinary approach to AI alignment: https://www.superset.com/feed/tom-chavez-in-tech-crunch-answering-ais-biggest-questions-requires-an-interdisciplinary-approachListen to more episodes at www.theclosedsession.com

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Brenden Kumarasamy, founder of Master Talk, a platform dedicated to nurturing top tier communicators in diverse industries. Breneden has honed his craft coaching executives and entrepreneurs helping them ascend into the top 1% of communicators in their fields.Brenden also runs the popular Master Talk YouTube channel where he has democratised access to his communication tools.In this episode we dissect Brenden's journey, his philosophies, the art and science of effective communication, and his vision to transform the way we communicate. KEY TAKEAWAYS My journey started in college where I studied accounting where I created presentations around numbers. Somebody told me that if I wanted to work for one of the big four accounting firms, I needed to participate in these things called ‘case competitions' which are essentially competitive presentations where you present in front of executives and the best people get jobs. I started coaching the other students on how to communicate (mostly for free) to help them win competitions and I accidentally developed a gift for how to speak. While working for IBM I was making videos for fun in my basement, just as a hobby. But that hobby turned into something a lot bigger than I initially thought it was going to. After two and a half years I made the difficult decision to quit my job and do Master Talk full-time.  YouTube is the hardest one out of all the platforms to grow, but it's also the most beneficial one if you stay in it the longest. The 5/20 rule: If I post 1 really good piece of content that's long form every week for the next 10 years I'll be successful on YouTube. I've already written all my content for 2024 that I'll film with my production team in the next 3 months. That's how forward thinking I think about the brand. Never miss a week. There are parts of education, consulting, helping other people transform industries that AI will make better. For example, search queries, so I might not need as many people on a research team. But what AI cannot automate is education. No one is going to spend $2,000 to fly out to a conference to watch an AI speak, the human is really important in this situation. BEST MOMENTS‘I did not want to be an entrepreneur, I wanted to be an executive. '‘A big mistake a lot of content creators make is when they think about personal branding, they focus a lot on what's hot: Linkedin, Tik Tok, etc. I always thought about my personal brand in decades not days. Who do I want to be in 10 years?'‘People focus way too much on having 1000 followers, not 1000 conversations. If I do 10,000 podcast interviews, it's impossible for me to not have 100,000 followers. Luckily, I didn't need to do 10,000, it took 500.'‘If you 10 years from now had the chance to look back at your life right now, what would they disagree with you on? Oftentimes it's not information, it's implementation that's missing.' ABOUT THE GUESTBrenden Kumarasamy: It all begins with impact. Despite all the presentations I've given over my life, I still remember to this day how scared I was to post my first YouTube video. I didn't look like anything in my workshops or presentations, but I went ahead with this project for one reason: Impact. A wise friend once told me that I couldn't possibly coach every human being on Earth with the limited time I had in my life, so I needed to go on video to share my message with the world. I got over my fear, practised 100's of times on camera until I was finally able to say that I was “YouTube Ready”.All's to say that when you care about others and only want to add value, you'll be able to overcome any fear/obstacle in the service of others.Website: https://www.mastertalk.ca/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendenkumarasamy/ ABOUT THE HOSTSabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: podcast@sabinevdl.comWebsite: www.sabinevdl.comThis show was brought to you by Progressive Media

Join host Sabrina Walker Hernandez on "Sipping Tea with Sabrina" as she serves the tea on insightful strategies and practical tips for running effective board meetings. With less talk and more strategy, this podcast is your go-to resource for mastering the art of productive boardroom discussions. Get ready to elevate your leadership skills with Sabrina's expert advice and proven techniques. Tune in to "Sipping Tea with Sabrina" and unlock the secrets to running impactful board meetings like a pro. Suscribe to my YouTube channel for more amazing content.    

Knowing when to form and build a Board of Directors is a challenge for many startup founders.Once the Board is formed, how to manage and communicate with the Board presents an additional burden on founders.Our guest, Mahendra Ramsinghani, co-authored Startup Boards: Getting the Most of Your Board of Directors with Brad Feld, and has all the insights and advice you need to skillfully navigate this important segment of your startup's structure.Currently, Mahendra is the Founder of Secure Octane - a cybersecurity seed fund based in the San Francisco Bay area.He's invested in over fifty pre-seed and seedstage companies and, as the former Director of Venture Capital Initiatives for Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), Mahendra led the legislation for two Fund-of-Fund programs in Michigan. Mahendra is also the author of two additional books - The Business of Venture Capital and The Resilient Founder.To purchase a copy of Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors, please visit: https://amzn.to/3N7YfjzConnect with Mahendra via these links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahendraram/Website: https://www.thebusinessofvc.com/Thank you for carving out time to improve your Founder Game - when you do better, your startup will do better - cheers from Boston!Ande ♥https://andelyons.com#boardofdirectors #startupboards #buildingeffectivestartupboards #founderadvice WHAT WE LEARNED00:00 - Meet Seasoned Startup Investor Mahendra Ramsinghani09:00 - Mahendra's origin story13:00 - Not knowing what to do can be either paralyzing or empowering18:00 - Mahendra's investor journey - how it began and how it's going25:00 - Secure Octane32:00 - When does a startup need to establish a Board34:00 - Who should be on a Board and how many members are needed based on stage of funding: Seed/Series A-D36:30 39:00 - Legal requirements for Boards and fiduciary responsibilities41:00 - What are the Board's responsibilities and what are the Founder's responsibilities43:20 - Who is in charge45:00 - Communication strategies and intellectual honesty48:00 - How does a Founder deliver bad news to a Board of Directors54:00 - Board of Director's Compensation Packages57:00 - How to off-ramp a toxic Board MemberJOIN STARTUP LIFE LIVE MEETUP GROUPGet an alert whenever I post a new show!https://bit.ly/StartupLifeLIVEWBENC APPLICATION SUPPORTLearn more here: https://bit.ly/GetWBENCSend me an email: ande@andelyons.comCONNECT WITH ME ONLINE: https://twitter.com/AndeLyonshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/andelyons/ https://www.instagram.com/ande_lyons/ TikTok: @andelyonsANDELICIOUS ANNOUNCEMENTSJoin Innovation Women here: https://bit.ly/AndeInnoWomenArlan's Academy: https://arlansacademy.com/Scroobious - use Ande15 discount code: https://www.scroobious.com/How to Raise a Seed Round: https://bit.ly/AAElizabethYinTune in to Mia Voss' Shit We Don't Talk About podcast here: https://shitwedonttalkaboutpodcast.com/SPONSORSHIPIf you resonate with the show's mission of amplifying diverse founder voices while serving first-time founders around the world, please reach out to me to learn more about making an impact through sponsoring the Startup Life LIVE Show! ande@andelyons.com.

Key Takeaways:The discipline of modern governance today is really in a global realm – can no longer be thought of in simply local or regional terms.Governance should be viewed as a discipline and thus, your individual board “packaging” is critical to you being identified as a serious board candidate.Board Documents are not comprised of a resume or CV but rather are highly structured and specific tools and should be reflective of your core leadership traits, your “major” and “minors” with respect to the depth of your experience and your governance skills and how these link ethics, values, and culture to strategy and risk oversight. The time and energy put into crafting Board Documents is an important exercise for your board journey.The Board interview is a two-way dialogues and vetting process that allows: (1) the company to understand how well you understand the particular linkage of values, culture, risk and strategy to governance and (2) specifically, how well you will fit into the board and whether your depth and experience will enable you to be accretive to the board's operations. Don't be afraid to ask thoughtful questions and be intentional in developing linkage between yourself and the board dynamics. Resources: Becoming an Exceptional Board Director Candidate Education & Certification CourseAcross the Board: The Modern Architecture Behind an Effective Board of Directors

Matt's company, Bolster, is an on-demand executive talent marketplace that helps accelerate companies' growth. Bolster connects companies with experienced, vetted executives for interim, fractional, advisory, project-based or board roles.Matt has been recognized as one of New York's 100 most influential technology leaders by Business Insider, by Crain's as one of New York's Top Entrepreneurs, and by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist.Before Bolster, Matt built businesses and worked in marketing, consulting, and venture capital. He is the author of Startup CEO, Startup CXO, and Startup Boards, set to be released in June 2022.During the interview, we discuss…growing and scaling leadershow to build a strong corporate culturewhat it takes to hire and run a strong leadership teamthe future of workcompetition for talenthow to build and lead an effective boardwhat aspiring board directors need to knowConnect with Matt after the interview…Visit Bolster: https://bolster.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blumbergmattTwitter: https://twitter.com/mattblumbergGet Matt's books:Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Boards-Building-Effective-Directors-ebook/dp/B0B3217C4DStartup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company's Critical Functions and Teams https://www.amazon.com/Startup-CXO-Companys-Functions-Techstars-ebook/dp/B0949F83K5Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business https://www.amazon.com/Startup-CEO-Scaling-Business-Techstars-ebook/dp/B08CKCT17BClaim your free gift!We're giving away a one-year membership to the world's #1 business book summary service for leaders! Our gift will help you stay on top of the latest ideas, decide which books to read next, and engage your teams.To get your gift:Leave a rating or review on your favorite listening channel.Take a screenshot of your review.Share the screenshot on LinkedIn, and mention either “Allison Dunn” or “Deliberate Directions” and the “Deliberate Leaders Podcast”.=============Allison DunnExecutive Business CoachDeliberate Directions + Executive Business Coaching + Training Center3003 W Main Street, Suite 110, Boise ID 83702(208) 350-6551Website https://www.deliberatedirections.comLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisondunnPodcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deliberate-leaders-podcast-with-allison-dunn/id1500464675

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by Brad Feld, co-author of Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors. Brad Feld has invested in startups for over 25 years and co-founded Foundry and Techstars. He is the author of multiple books, including Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist and Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Brad Feld, co-author of Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors.Brad Feld has invested in startups for over 25 years and co-founded Foundry and Techstars. He is the author of multiple books, including Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist and Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City.

What is a board of directors? What is its purpose, and what makes for a good board member? And how can you get value from a board, especially if you're a startup? This week, we have another tactical learning episode to answer these questions and much more. Brad Feld and Matt Blumberg – together with Mahendra Ramsinghani – recently republished and vastly expanded the second edition of their book: "Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors." Brad has been a venture capitalist since the ‘90s, with a special focus on technology companies like Zynga and Fitbit. Matt has been a VC and a start-up founder, having created and sold numerous companies, and worked for larger ones like AOL and General Atlantic Partners. They both agree there's no better time to discuss the value in building a great board, than when you first start a company.

When discussing entrepreneurialism and venture capital, sometimes the conversation can be greatly beneficial when it's opened to beyond just two people. On episode 196 of the DealQuest Podcast, Corey does just that – he's opened the conversation to include two successful and talented entrepreneurs- Brad Feld and Matt Blumberg. They discuss the many intricate details of entrepreneurialism, venture capital, starting and running a company, and so much more. BRAD FELD Brad Feld got his entrepreneurial start in college when he founded his first company, Feld Technologies. This has allotted Brad over 35 years of entrepreneurial experience, which has been greatly beneficial to his co-founding of the company Techstars. Not only that, but working in tandem with his wife, Amy Batchelor, they run the Anchor Point Foundation. Not only is Brad actively engaged with entrepreneurialism, but he's also written several books on entrepreneurship and venture capital, as well as began blogging in 2004 on these topics. At present, you can find him on Twitter, sharing his knowledge in the niche corner of “VC Twitter”. “VC Twitter” – aka Venture Capital Twitter – is a community of people who utilize the social media platform's tools and broad communication to discuss venture capital, and come together to exchange education, knowledge, and resources. MATT BLUMBERG Like Brad, Matt Blumberg is a long-time, successful entrepreneur, author, and business owner. Unlike Brad, Matt's expertise is being a technology entrepreneur. Brad is also the CEO of Bolster, an on-demand executive talent marketplace, designed to help accelerate companies' growth. They focus on this growth by connecting companies with highly vetted executives for the interim, fractional, advisory, project-based, or board roles. Matt's experience spans back over 30 years in marketing, consulting, and venture capital. Having built, founded or chaired several successful businesses to date, including PathForward.org, Oblong Inc., and Return Path Inc. Matt's success in entrepreneurialism doesn't just stop at his personal achievements in business, but also his knowledge and skill in business has been recognized by Business Insider as one of New York's 100 most influential technology leaders, by Crain's as one of New York's Top Entrepreneurs, and by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. THE PROGRESSION OF BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS Brad has been in the business of entrepreneurialism since the mid-80s, a lot has changed. When selling his first business, Brad was taken under the wing of two successful dealmakers of their time, who taught him some of the base tenements of deal-making. Their style of deal-making fell out of favor with the advent of the digital age – wherein things can become quite impersonal – but Brad prefers to keep it a bit “old school”. Simply meaning, he believes in keeping deal-making as a relationship – personal, and beneficial to both parties. Focus on building the relationship and an understanding – AKA: a “handshake agreement” – before putting things down on paper. Focus on the things that matter in the context of making a deal, versus all the minutiae that can convolute and distract from making a successful deal. Be simple and straight-forward about what you want to achieve in the deal, and what matters most to you. During the infancy of the internet, Matt was on the executive team for a then-small cap public company, Moviefone. Matt was alongside the CEO and CFO during the dealmaking process of selling Moviefone to AOL. He, too, attests to the importance of focusing on the relationship between professionals throughout the entire deal-making process. Ironically, the sale of Moviefone began over a handshake in a movie theater during the premiere of You've Got Mail. Matt spent 20 years building the company, Return Path Inc., with Brad spending 19 years on the board. Return Path Inc. was sold in 2019, however a potential deal two years prior almost came to fruition. Matt asserts that the former deal failed, and the 2019 deal was successful, ultimately because he knew the CEO of the eventual buyer, and he did not have a relationship with the earlier bidder. Thus, corroborating the importance of having a growing relationship between dealmakers throughout the deal-making process. INVESTING FOR ORGANIC GROWTH Brad began to develop his serial entrepreneurial skills by getting in on the ground floor of new-age seed investments by quickening his pace, and investing in a new company each month, something almost entirely unheard of in the mid-90s at the beginning of the commercial internet, wherein most seed-investors played a slow and steady game with their investments. With the birth of the internet-age in the mid- to late-90s, new businesses in tech began to spring up like weeds, and Brad took this newly flourishing market to begin making angel investments. He used virtually 100% of the profits he made from selling his first company to make a series of angel investments in the infancy of tech businesses. He also positioned himself to be on the company boards, and in some instances, even co-founding the company. For Brad, his ability to become an angel investor, combined with his strategic positioning within the companies, opened a lot of doors, leading into some of the more well-known VC businesses of today. ACQUISITION FOR INORGANIC GROWTH While investing capital into a company to build equity is a good path to build organic growth, another valuable way to build growth, for some, is inorganically. By taking a smaller company, acquiring other smaller companies, to the point that the growth becomes a chain link of acquisitions that build a larger company. IE: Company A acquires Company B to make Company C, Company C acquires Company D to become Company E, and so on and so forth. The goal of growing a business is to always be additive to what you already have. In the business of inorganic growth, it's important to only seek companies that can add to what you've already built – it won't always work out successfully, but the goal is always to remain in forward momentum. Especially as a buyer, you can't be afraid of making a mistake, making a bad deal, or acquiring a business that ends up not being additive to your core company. Brad's anecdotal evaluation on acquisitions is a half-joke passed to him from his mentor: “Would you buy it for a dollar?” If the answer is yes: then there's something to talk about; investigate the potentiality. If the answer is no: then, perhaps it's best to move on. As Brad says, “When you ask that question, [you find] there's a lot of stuff you wouldn't buy for a dollar.” This rule applies to the acquisitions of companies. Frankly, if you wouldn't spend money on it, why are you entertaining the idea of spending money on it? When Matt was looking for investors for Return Path Inc. around the time of the dot-com bubble and collapse, another small company – that just so happened to have Brad on the executive board – was also at the doorstep of the same investment company. The investment company compared the two businesses, and noted that they were fundamentally the same. The deal then became merging the two like-companies into one larger company, with Return Path Inc. becoming the acquisitioner. While Matt recollects that deal in one way, Brad recalls his view somewhat differently, which revolves back to, and is another testimony of, the importance of building relationships in dealmaking with authenticity. Depending on your position approaching the deal, and your position within the respective companies, your field of vision on the deal may vary, and good practice is to keep in mind all the potentially differing viewpoints. RISK ASSESSMENT FOR GROWTH Within business there is always a risk curve. You want to post yourself in a comfortable area of this risk curve, especially at the start of any new deal potential. Your deal should be primarily about generating upside, not mitigating risk: Keep your dealmaking to principal players only: when you begin to open the deal up to non-principal players, your risk will increase. Be unafraid to take risks. Be aware of risks, and take inventory of risks, but do not focus entirely on evaluating risk factors. Do not lose sight of the vision of the deal. If you're a principal in a deal process, do not defer to others, nor hide behind your lawyers Try to keep the deal as engaged and collaborative as possible (IE: as the deal initiator, do your best to continue to nurture the relationship throughout the entire process, and if your counterpart is seeming to defer out, check in with them; make sure they're remaining engaged, as well). Do your pre-due diligence. * for more on pre-due diligence, check out Lesson 2: How to Prepare for Deals in the Deal-Driven Growth Accelerator course Understand there are no successful deals without some risk involved THE PATHWAY TO BUILDING A BOARD While Matt has authored, with contributions from Brad, two other books on this subject, Matt and Brad jointly constructed Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors, released in June 2022. Matt asserts that the startup market is oversaturated with new entrepreneurs, most of whom have never started a business, let alone have built an entire board. That's the intent of Startup Boards: Focusing on the unassailable fact that competition to get noticed in the startup market is tight, and it takes making the right choices to get noticed by potential investors. Board-building is no easy feat. Many of the things addressed in Startup Boards are designed to make entrepreneurs think about their board and evaluate: Build a board deliberately and with intention. Configure a board that is healthy, and functions as a team. Bring in professionals that don't merely invest in the company, but are proficient in the company's space, and how to direct a company within that space. Be cautious of how many founders are on the board (in most scenarios, the fewer the better, in Matt's opinion). Startup Boards is intended to serve as a field guide for all these entrepreneurs wading the harsh waters of startup and board building, and offer them guidance and a hand up to building their successful company board. They want and expect the reader to dog-ear and reference back to Startup Boards like a map, as the reader journeys through the world of startup and board-building, with hopes of becoming one of the success stories everyone hears about. • • Reach out to Brad Feld for more:https://feld.com/https://onboards.libsyn.com/ Reach out to Matt Blumberg for more:startupceo.comlinkedin.com/in/blumbergmatt • • Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author, and professional speaker. He is deeply passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast. If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal-Ready Assessment today!

Since its initial publication, “The Business of Venture Capital” has been hailed as the definitive, most comprehensive book on the subject. In its upcoming third edition, this market-leading text explains the multiple facets of the business of venture capital, from raising venture funds, to structuring investments, to generating consistent returns, to evaluating exit strategies.Mahendra Ramsinghani is the founder of Secure Octane, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, which invests in cybersecurity among other sectors. He is also the author of multiple books including “The Resilient Founder,” and “Startup Boards” co-authored with noted VC Brad Feld.Greg and Mahendra dig into everything that makes VCs work in this episode, including what fund managers think about venture capital, betting on humans over ideas, characteristics of a good GP, and the mental health of founders. Episode Quotes:The single biggest problem with venture capital10:51: I think that's the single biggest problem in our businesses: Markets don't evolve or adopt technologies fast enough. Or if they adopt certain technologies, they don't adopt every technology. They'll pick one, right? So you end up saying: Okay, in this scenario, I was the winner and in this scenario, I lost. And so this is a business where you're constantly being humbled and constantly being reminded that you cannot logically plan the outcomes.What are the key characteristics of a successful venture capitalist?39:06: The fundamental attributes that play out well are curiosity and openness to learning about new trends. And then the second, and the more important, is the ability to take risks within a shorter period of time and make our decisions quickly as opposed to trying to belabor over how the future might play out five years from now. Two metrics in measuring fund performance27:03: What fund managers do, you know, people like me, are giving them the two metrics they want to look at before they start the conversation. So, your IRR, you know, is a time-based sort of metric of your performance. And then the second is your cash on cash, whether you're TVPI (Total Value to Paid In) or multiple of investor capital. So those two tend to have now become industry standards.Show Links:Recommended Resources:John Hagel episode Guest Profile:Contributor's Profile at ForbesContributor's Profile at TechCrunchMahendra Ramsinghani on TwitterMahendra Ramsinghani on LinkedInHis Work:Secure Octane InvestmentsStartup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors The Resilient Founder: Lessons in Endurance from Startup EntrepreneursThe Business of Venture Capital: The Art of Raising a Fund, Structuring Investments, Portfolio Management, and Exits (Wiley Finance)

Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.   Only five more weeks until the RIMS ERM Conference 2022 (held November 10th‒11th in Indianapolis, IN!) Joining RIMScast today is the opening keynote speaker of the event, Mark A. Pfister!   Mark A. Pfister is the CEO and Chief Board Consultant of M.A. Pfister Strategy Group; an executive advisory firm that serves as a strategic advisory council for executives and Boards in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Mark's popular book, Across The Board: The Modern Architecture Behind an Effective Board of Directors, is an Amazon best-seller with circulation in over 70 countries, influencing an entire new generation of Board Directors.   In this episode, Mark shares a preview of his upcoming keynote at the RIMS ERM Conference titled, “The Strategy of Risk: How Strategy Plays a Direct Role in Risk Realization,” and gives his insights into the evolving role of strategy in risk management.   Key Takeaways: [:01] About the RIMS Membership. [:27] About today's episode and how to save $400 on the Pre-Conference Workshop for RIMS-CRMP Prep! [:42] About RIMScast. [:55] About today's conversation with Mark A. Pfister. [1:02] Upcoming RIMS webinars, workshops, events, and more! [2:35] Justin introduces and welcomes Mark A. Pfister to RIMScast! [3:40] About Mark's educational and professional background. [4:48] Why strategy is so important to Mark. [6:52] How to view and apply strategy in a way that will change the way that you lead. [8:10] Mark's thoughts and experiences with the risk profession. [9:08] How risk and insurance professionals can improve their risk strategies. [11:35] RIMS plug time! [13:12] What strategy actually is; Mark gives a preview of his upcoming keynote speech. [14:53] Mark describes his presentation style. [16:20] Will Mark be taking questions from the audience after his keynote? [16:37] Has Mark returned to in-person events this year as an attendee or speaker? [17:54] Justin thanks Mark for joining and shares some of the links to check in today's show notes!   Mentioned in this Episode: RIMS Events, Education, and Services: RIMS ERM Conference 2022 — November 10‒11, 2022 | Indianapolis, IN — Agenda Now Live! Save $400 on the Pre-Conference Workshop: RIMS-CRMP Prep Attend the in-person RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep Workshop, November 8‒9. Register for the ERM Conference and select the workshop on the “Additional Purchase Options” page. Your $400 savings will already be applied. Learn more! The RIMS Strategic & Enterprise Risk Center RIMS Risk Maturity Model In-Person Events: RIMS Events App Apple | Google Play NEW FOR MEMBERS! RIMS Mobile App RIMS Buyers Guide Contribute to RIMS Risk Management magazine Dan Kugler Risk Manager on Campus Grant Sponsor RIMScast: Contact sales@rims.org or pd@rims.org for more information. Virtual Workshops: Managing Cognitive Bias Risk — Oct 11‒12 | 10:30 am‒4:30 pm EST | Registration Closes Oct 10th — Register Now! Contractual Risk Transfer Canada — Oct. 19‒20 | 12:00 pm‒6:00 pm EST | Registration Closes Oct. 18th — Register Now! See the full calendar of RIMS Virtual Workshops Upcoming RIMS Webinars: “Climate Change Impacts and Opportunities” | Sponsored by AXA XL | Oct. 6, 2022 “Beware of Artificial Intelligence” | Sponsored by Nationwide | Oct. 11, 2022 Related RIMScast Episodes: “ERM and Employment Trends with Terry Lampropoulos” “RISKWORLD Keynote Michael C. Bush On Risk and ‘Greatness'” “RISKWORLD Keynote Rachel Sheerin On How Risk Leaders Can Combat and Harness Burnout” “Rethinking the Impact of Disruption on ERM Tools and Processes with Ward Ching and Dr. Paul Walker” “Responsible Raw Materials, Mining, and ESG with Sarah Gordon of Satarla” “Path to the Boardroom: Resolver CEO Will Anderson's Journey” “ESG and the Board with Luke Jacobs of Encamp” Sponsored RIMScast Episodes: “Aon's 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season Overview” (NEW) “ESG Through the Risk Lens” | Sponsored by Riskonnect “A Look at the Cyber Insurance Market” | Sponsored by AXA XL “How to Reduce Lithium-Ion Battery Fire Risks” | Sponsored by TÜV SÜD “Managing Global Geopolitical Risk in 2022 and Beyond” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Keeping Subcontractors Safe Through Partner Elevation” | Sponsored by Highwire “ESG: A Responsibility and a Growing Megatrend” | Sponsored by Prudent Insurance Brokers Ltd. “Focusing on Your Team to Deliver Exceptional Quality and Service to Your Clients” | Sponsored by Gallagher Bassett “Bermuda Opportunities in 2022 with BDA Chair Stephen Weinstein” | Sponsored by Bermuda Business Development Agency “SyncR: A Tool to Enhance Your Risk Quality & Insurance Strategy” | Sponsored by Prudent Insurance Brokers Ltd. “Navigating the Risk Landscape in 2022” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Prioritizing People: Expertise and Innovation” | Sponsored by Gallagher Bassett “Risk Findings for the Industrial & Manufacturing Industry” | Sponsored by Aon “Establishing the Right Assurance to Request From Business Partners” | Sponsored by HITRUST “Aon's 2021 Retail Industry Overview” | Sponsored by Aon “A Legacy of Resilience” | Sponsored by J.B. Boda Group “The Golden Era of Insurance” | Sponsored by The Hartford “Insurance Investigation Trends Happening Now” | Sponsored by Travelers “What Could a CRO Do for Your Business?” | Sponsored by Riskonnect “Hard Reality: A Look at Rising Rates in Property & Excess Casualty” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Property Valuation Deep Dive” | Sponsored by TÜV SÜD “Property Loss Control Engineering” | Sponsored by Prudent Insurance Brokers RIMS Publications, Content, and Links: RIMS Membership — Whether you are a new member or need to transition, be a part of the global risk management community! RIMS Virtual Workshops Upcoming RIMS Webinars On-Demand Webinars RIMS Advisory Services — Ask a Peer Risk Management Magazine Risk Management Monitor RIMS Coronavirus Information Center RIMS Risk Leaders Series RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) RIMS-CRMP Stories — New interview featuring RIMS-CRMP Chairman Ward Ching! Spencer Educational Foundation RIMS DEI Council RIMS Path to the Boardroom   Want to Learn More? Keep up with the podcast on RIMS.org and listen on iTunes. Have a question or suggestion? Email: Content@rims.org.   Join the Conversation! Follow @RIMSorg on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.   Follow up with Our Guest: M.A. Pfister Strategy Group Mark A. Pfister's LinkedIn Across The Board: The Modern Architecture Behind an Effective Board of Directors, by Mark A. Pfister   Tweetables (For Social Media Use):   “If we fast-forward to today, I truly am laser-focused in the scene of leadership and board director areas. It's really a way that I view as making the biggest impact relating to strategy, governance, and leadership.” — Mark A. Pfister   “We have to understand that strategy is inextricably linked to governance and risk. You can't really be good in one and not really focus on the others; they kind of come in this package deal.” — Mark A. Pfister   “Strategy [can be applied] in such a way that it will change the way that you lead, it will change the way that you govern, [and] it will change your success in many cases in any position you are in your organization.” — Mark A. Pfister   “I think we're in a period where [strategy is] looked at much differently. I think we have to view strategy as a set of guiding principles that generate a desired pattern of integrated decision making.” — Mark A. Pfister

Show Notes 2:24 – The CEO / Board Chair working relationship / Dr. William Ryan's workshop 5:18 – Who sets the agenda for the Board Meeting 6:23 – Board Composition 7:35 – Recruiting new Board Members at Opportunity International 9:25 – What keeps a nonprofit Board from functioning effectively? 13:55 – What are you doing to strengthen the Opportunity International Board? 19:00 – What's the best thing a Board can do for a new CEO? 20:00 – Succession Planning 24:00 – Atul's counsel to someone asking for advice on whether to become a Board Chair   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Opportunity International Website   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Tommy's Twitter Profile Atul Tandon's LinkedIn Profile  

Matt Blumberg is the founder and CEO of Bolster, a marketplace for on-demand executive and board talent launched in 2020. Matt was Chairman & CEO of Return Path, Inc., the company he founded in 1999, until its sale to Validity in 2019. Return Path was the market leader in email optimization, helping thousands of businesses use the email channel more effectively to promote and protect their brands and winning numerous employer of choice awards including #2 on Fortune Magazine's “Best Companies to Work for” list. Prior to founding Return Path, Matt was founder and General Manager of the Internet division of MovieFone, Inc. (777-FILM) until the company's acquisition by AOL, and had previously worked in venture capital and management consulting.   In addition to his corporate entrepreneurial work, Matt is co-founder and Chairman of Path Forward, a nonprofit that was spun out of Return Path in 2016, whose mission is to empower women to restart their careers after time spent focused on caregiving, working with more than 75 companies including Apple, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Intuit, Campbell's Soup, PayPal, Verizon, and Oracle. He is also the author of 3 books: Startup CEO: A field guide to scaling up your business (based on his popular blog on entrepreneurship, StartupCEO.com), Startup CXO: A field guide to scaling up your company's critical functions and teams, and the forthcoming Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors, all published by Wiley & Sons.   Matt has been recognized as one of New York's 100 most influential technology leaders by Business Insider, by Crain's as one of New York's Top Entrepreneurs, and by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. He has served as a Board Member of numerous corporate, nonprofit, and community organizations, as well as Chairman of the Board of the Direct Marketing Association, and he completed a brief assignment as founder and leader of the State of Colorado's COVID-19 Innovation Response Team in 2020. Matt attended Princeton University where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with an A.B. in Urban Planning in 1992. He lives with his wife Mariquita and his three children, Casey, Wilson, and Elyse in Scarsdale, NY.

Matt Bailey, VentureSouth's market leader in Greensboro NC, provides some of his greatest contributions to angel investing from serving on the boards of early-stage companies. In today's episode, he shares some of his experiences mentoring CEOs, serving as a sounding board, providing ideas and connections, and keeping a board operating cohesively even during challenging times.

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Brad Feld. Brad has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and is a co-founder of Techstars. Brad is also an author of a number of books including — Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors. More About Brad Feld: His book – Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors Feld.com Take The Marketing Assessment: Take the Assessment This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and Semrush.

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.In this episode, Andrew is joined by Brad Feld, author of Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors.Brad Feld has invested in startups for over 25 years and co-founded Foundry and Techstars. He is the author of multiple books, including Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist and Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City.

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by Brad Feld, author of Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors. Brad Feld has invested in startups for over 25 years and co-founded Foundry and Techstars. He is the author of multiple books, including Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist and Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Brad Feld, Mahendra Ramsinghani and Matt Blumberg talk about their new book, it is an incredibly inciteful and comprehensive look at Startups and all boards.  An instruction manual for CEOs who are building and leading a board and a valuable reference for existing board members, aspiring board members and venture investors. Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here. Links Startup Boards – Buy on Amazon Quotes Matt: It's never too early to build a board and, as a CEO, if you get good board dynamic, you have created a secret weapon for your business - a strategic sounding board that you couldn't go out and buy.   Brad ¨Jeff Lawson said: “I view the board as another team that I get, and why wouldn't I take advantage of being able to create a great team at that level that can help me grow and develop both the business and me as a CEO?"  That summarized it as well as I've ever heard it said by an entrepreneurial CEO   The really interesting and important dynamic around board of directors are how they function as a team and how the individual participants engage with each other and how the CEO engages with the participant, and then how the management team fits into that, and that all of that is true if you're aspiring any of those things; board member, investor, entrepreneur, or experienced.   Mahendra: The board can make it a safe place for the CEO to feel comfortable, feel confident and engaged as a team of equals.  It's important for the CEO to build their inner self-confidence so that they can sit in the same table, to be in the same room with people who are 5 years, 10 years ahead in the journey and hold their hand or say, "I need help. How would you do this?" At the same time, being honest, and what they did in that time may not always be relevant, so there's a fine line, but having the sense of confidence to surround yourself with giants is extremely important.   Matt: No Slides!  When there are slides on the wall, two things happen. Whoever is presenting reads the slide out loud, which drives me crazy. It drives everybody crazy, because you should assume your board members can read.  But the other thing that happens when you have a slide on the wall or a slide on the screen is that all eyes are on the slide. What you want to have in terms of a dynamic when you're trying to have a meaningful discussion among people on a team is you want eyes on each other, not eyes on the wall. Brad: The best boards: you fight, you argue, you challenge each other, you disagree, but you're friends and you have respect for each other, and you carry each other with some amusement. Those are the best boards.   Big Ideas/Thoughts   New in the 2nd Edition of Book Matt added a lot of new content from a CEO's perspective   We made a very significant shift and replaced a lot of sidebars and quotes with new content specifically from women and from people of color, to allow the book to be more representative of what a board should look like for a startup in 2022 in terms both gender and racial equity.   We've written this book in such a way that it addresses the full spectrum from someone who is an aspiring entrepreneur, investor, board member, to someone who is a very experienced entrepreneur, investor, board member.     Lessons from the Boardroom If nobody does the work to develop the board as a team you have just a collection of people.  I see that a lot among startup boards where the CEO does not put energy into building a highly functioning team or the CEO doesn't ask one of the board members to take a leadership role in helping her do that.   There a benefit of having a lead director or a board chair who is not the CEO, because then that person can take the leadership when all of a sudden things are not being constructive and to try to shift the tone and the narrative and the discussion dynamic from one that's not constructive to one that is.   In those situations, a strong, experienced, respected board member who might or might not be an investor can often play that role, and it's a very, very valuable position to have an outside director that's experienced, that's well respected who in those moments can step in and basically say some version of, "Hey guys and girls, cut the bullshit. Let's stop this. This is not being helpful. Let's step back. Let's calm down. Let's talk about what the issue is and try to solve the problem." It's important to have a lot of people that can play that role.   More Important Board Meeting Practices Prepare and circulate material in advance. Then assume the board members can read, so start the board meeting and run the board meeting as though everybody has already read the material. Have a clear objective of what is this meeting about. The best board meetings I'm in have a board package that goes out in advance that is separate from the board meeting presentation, and the board meeting presentation for each section has some version of a preamble, which is, "Here's what we're going to cover and here's what I want to accomplish as CEO. A lot of people think of their board or a way of thinking about the board is, " I've got to have some investors in my board, and so anybody else I add to my board, I want to get the best networking I can from them because I want introductions." That's really limited thinking. Especially if your business is young, you don't really know what direction it's going to go in, and so people that have very different frames of reference from you but experienced in things that are additive to what you're doing can add another layer of diversity to the board. There has to be a conscious effort to search for board members outside your zones of comfort. That is not easy. It takes time. There are no easy paths to build bridges into other domains, but that is a very essential function every entrepreneur should try and build upon. No Slides! When there are slides on the wall, two things happen. Whoever is presenting reads the slide out loud, which drives me crazy. It drives everybody crazy, because you should assume your board members can read.  But the other thing that happens when you have a slide on the wall or a slide on the screen is that all eyes are on the slide. What you want to have in terms of a dynamic when you're trying to have a meaningful discussion among people on a team is you want eyes on each other, not eyes on the wall.

Connie & Alex go over this week in tech news, and then Connie talks to venture capitalist Brad Feld of Foundry Group about his new book, Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors, and why startup boards are especially important when times are tough.Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Understanding how your Board can be effective begins with an assessment of your Board’s architecture. Author, consultant, and non-Executive Director Mark A. Pfister joins us to talk about what he means by the architecture of a Board and how individual Board members need to meet the demands of their roles in order to serve the … Continue reading Episode 23: Understanding the key elements of an effective Board with “the Board Architect”, Mark A. Pfister

Anthony Goodman is the leader of the North American Board Effectiveness Practice for Korn Ferry, and he understands the challenges boards face meeting the challenge of becoming a high performing board – and maintaining excellence.  In this episode we discuss some of those challenges. Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here. Links Anthony Bio Analyzing emerging trends in board evaluation practices How boards can adapt to support ESG efforts The 'Climate Change' Director   Quotes Who is responsible for ESG? The idea that ESG is not going to impact the entire board and every committee is a mistake. If you think about ESG as it's supposed to be, it is about the company's strategy and its risk management.  What you're really asking is, “what are the material risks and opportunities of ESG.” ESG Expertise Question: With the increasing emphasis on ESG, does that mean board need a new set of skills and tools and, if so, what are some of the skills and tools they should be considering? What boards need to do first is understand “what are the material risks and opportunities for our company, and when they have done that assessment, or management has done that assessment for them.”  Then the next question they need to ask is, "As we look at the issues for which we need to provide oversight, do we have the skills and experiences on the board to do that? If there's something glaringly missing, how do we get that skill into the board?  But maybe it's about the whole board upskilling.  Maybe it's about the fact that everyone on the board actually needs to understand what the material risks to the business are. Michelle Edkins, who runs the stewardship team globally at BlackRock, has this wonderful saying: "A board made up of one trick ponies is a circus." Board Effectiveness How involved is the board in the strategy how involved has the board been in helping to develop the strategy and overseeing the strategy? How involved are they in risk management and identifying and making sure that risks are being dealt with? How effective have they been in hiring and firing CEOs The question is who can the board get feedback from? It's often just within the board itself, but you could, for instance, ask senior managers whether the board is actually adding any value to them. Is it providing guidance? Is it providing challenge? Do they feel stretched by this board or not? You could ask your investors. You could ask your audit firm. You could ask your law firm. There are a number of stakeholders that are in and around the boardroom that observe how the board is doing. Board meeting agenda It takes a certain amount of courage to ask for an outside-in view of the board. It's much easier to do than an inside-out view and just ask the other directors how you're doing. People have got a lot of choices these days. The idea that boards are the buyer, actually no, boards now have to sell themselves to candidates, particularly good candidates who are women - who are people of color, who are digital natives - because those are the people everyone want on their board, and the real question is, why should they want to come on your board?   I think we've all got to be grownups about this, that sometimes it's just our time and we have to be willing to let go, but I think a lot of people's personal identity is tied up with being a board director, and if this is your last public company board, you're going to try and hang on to it as long as you can. Otherwise, what are you going to tell people down at the golf club that you do? You're a board director.   I sometimes say collegiality is a mask that covers up a lot of problems underlying in the board, and one of them is the inability to let go and allow people to make a dignified exit from the board.   Big Ideas/Thoughts Board Culture Culture problems cause issues for lots of companies, and it isn't just when there's a merger. It can be where you've got groups of employees that are fundamentally different from each other.  How do you treat those employees?   The question that comes to my mind here is accountability: how does a board hold management accountable for building the culture.   I think it's very hard to draw a straight line between an effective board and an effective company, but I think when the board is ineffective, it starts to erode what the company can do, what kind of strategic opportunities it has, the quality of the people it can recruit into senior management.  A bad board, I think, can create a lot of havoc inside a company, but a good board doesn't necessarily make for a good company.   Boards are often lagging indicators around strategic change.  They're not always leading indicators and we often see companies where the board is quite a way adrift of where the company has evolved to. I want to give you another C-word that boards should be thinking about and that's courage. If we had courageous conversations between board chairs and board directors, between non-gov chairs and board directors, this [off-boarding] would be so much easier.  But collegiality often trumps courage, and I think that's a big problem for boards. Diversity Just to go back a little bit, so why is there this focus on diversity? A lot of it actually came via the investors, the investor community. Why did they want boards to become more diverse? What they're really trying to do, I think, is to make sure that boards are cognitively diverse, but that is something that is really hard to do from outside.   You can't assess whether a board is cognitively diverse from the outside, and by the way, there's nobody trying to assess whether they're cognitively diverse on the inside either. What do investors say? They've said, "Okay, if we knew that the people on the board who definitely come from different backgrounds and different approaches to life, then we could imagine there might also be cognitive diversity.”   Our own practice, our board practice over the last couple of years, has been running at about 55% of all the people we put on boards in the US are women or people of color, I think that's pretty consistent across all the search firms.   A lot of first-time directors, women and people of color, are not perhaps being heard as much in the boardroom as they would have liked. I think a lot of board chairs probably think they're doing a good job trying to get everybody's voices to be heard, but I think that boards have to work quite hard to be inclusive and to make sure everyone feels comfortable in the boardroom.   Board Succession Planning   They ought to be looking at the strategy of the company, thinking about where it's heading over the next three to five years, and then looking at the skills and experiences that they have today and understanding the gaps. Let's say 10 years ago, the company might've been a purely domestic company. Now it's made a number of acquisitions globally, and there's nobody on the board with international experience.   Think about what next three, four, five directors are going to look like, and wouldn't it be great if out of those five, at least two, maybe three were going to be women that a certain number would be people of color, a certain number of them would be under the age of 56. In that way, if we land on some fantastic former CEO today, happens to be a white male and doesn't check any of those other boxes, we can still have that person on our board because we know we've got four more slots to fill, and we're going to make sure that in that batch of five people that we've got all the skills, experiences, and backgrounds that we want as opposed to trying to load them all on one person.

In this episode, Mark A. Pfister, the “Board Architect,” talks about how to build a board, what that means and the powerful impact it has on any company or organization.   Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.   Links   Board education & certification: https://www.pfisterstrategy.com/exceptionalboarddirector     Book on Board Architecture: https://www.pfisterstrategy.com/books   Quotes The architecture component of a board forces the thought process that you are looking and planning earlier. Whether you're creating a new board, or you're looking to rebuild an existing board, put some discipline behind this, look at the design aspects of it, understand there is a successful formula and model for boards that work efficiently and effectively; hence, the terminology of “board architecture” over “board structure.”   Three areas of focus in board architecture Sphere of influence. This relates to the vertical components of a properly built board. Core leadership competency, operations experience, and skillset competencies.   Planes of Congruence. This looks at the character of the Board, essentially the horizontal components. These can include balance of personality types, mix of industry backgrounds, diversity, age ranges, and many other components.   Coverage and Balance. This has to do with creating a depth of knowledge and somewhat of an    overlap of knowledge on the board. It allows for at least one other person, if not more, to have that ability to question whether it's at a governance level, whether it's at a technical level, just to understand and bring that conversation to additional questions and elevate the outcome, which is what that board is there to do .   “There's this interesting trend where placement and search organizations are being engaged to a certain degree, but the nominating committee has really taken an end-to-end process back into their purview and they're managing that process from end to end.”   Testing of board members I use two tests, one is called the GPPI or Gordon Personal Profile Inventory, and that particular test allows me to assess what I correlate to the emotional intelligence and the mindfulness intelligence. It's not just about IQ anymore.   Another one that I use is a Watson-Glaser test that allows as a comparison back to if someone's claiming to be an expert or a certain level of leadership, you can compare that back, and all of these tests are comparing back against big data so it's not that it's right or wrong answers. It's about are other people at that level successful and how is this person comparing with that?   “I believe that 90-plus percent of most issues within any board of directors of any entity type relates back to its lack of architecture in the way the board is built, so that makes it even more important for an aspiring director to understand how they avoid engagements or even appointments where they're just simply not going to be happy, or their risk goes up.”   “I am of the mindset that we are not just representing shareholders anymore that are only focused on the financial outcome of the organization. To me, and this is another observable, a board that is focused not just on the shareholder aspect, but also on the stakeholders, which are many - that's employees, that's vendors, that's consumers of the product and services - that viewpoint has to be an equal weighted consideration in the boardroom.”   “Whatever failures happen in an organization. I don't look at the CEO. I look at the board first and foremost." The CEO is a direct representative at the operational level of the organization representing the board, period.   “Every director should keep in the back of their mind ‘values equal culture equals organizational risk level' - all of it can be related back to that.”   Big Ideas/Thoughts   Question: What is the interrelationship between strategy and governance?   Board directors cannot properly govern without a deep understanding of not just a theory of strategy, but what the strategy is of the organization.   The diagram that I recommend, and I use in our board training is very simple. On one side sits the word goals, on the other side sits the word tasks, and in between that is a double-edged arrow or double-pointing arrow, that's strategy.   Strategy is connecting the goals to the tasks of the organization - - it's the how. When you hear “strategy” you should think “how?.”   We should be saying to ourselves as a director, "We need to fully understand the goals of this organization, and once they're set for a certain time period (the what and the why), the rest of our existence in the boardroom as it relates to governance is truly overseeing the strategy.  It's the governance of the strategy, which is the how.   You cannot govern something if you don't understand the strategy, they are inextricably linked and they're absolutely related, and this is a big miss for many senior level leaders today is that they don't understand where governance sits as it relates to strategy.   Strategy today is an integrated pattern of decision-making, which in a leadership mindset, if you think about an integrated pattern of decision-making, it forces you to ask questions.   Question: In a situation where the CEO and their senior team are responsible for developing the strategy, what is, in your view, the best way for the board to be involved to a point where they're not doing the job of the senior management, but are fully involved in understanding the strategy and are able to ask the questions they need to ask of the management?   I am actually probably a little more hands-on in my belief of the board's involvement with the strategy, and I would even say with the goals of the organization, I view those two areas as a very close working relationship between the CEO and the board. I'm not saying that the CEO should not step away and work with their team on coming up with possibly a proposed strategy, but I am also a fan before the CEO does that, that the board has some sort of very high strategic planning session and goal-setting session with the CEO. I am an absolute fan of every single board having a strategic planning committee, and I would even like to see the naming of that change so it's not misconstrued and call it more so a strategy committee, because strategic planning is assuming that the board is doing the planning, so I think that should change. Risk Committee.  Any clients that I work with in the board architecture realm, I'm laser focused on not just the strategic committee, but also the risk committee, and I think there's this misunderstanding or misnomer out there that, "Well, that's the responsibility of the audit committee." My comment typically on that is that I'm not disputing by any means risk as it relates to finance, but the number of risks that are being dealt with in every organization today that require a home, especially at the board level, I don't think any company can get away with that right now…..you have to separate out not just financial risks, but overall company and organization risks. Raza: I think as we've talked with our guests, including David Koenig, the audit committee is kind of focusing on what has happened, at the least it needs a separate time, separate mindset, a separate  hat on to say, what is the future possibilities of risks, both positive and negative, in the sense that, are we taking enough risks, and hence, having a separate risk committee is likely the best way to drive that. Mark: Well, I would love to see more of a formal approach as it relates to education and certification or risk areas for a board. David Koenig has done that with the DCRO.

Hi there! If you are a nonprofit leader who is ready to become comfortable talking about money, you are in good company!   I am so excited for today's episode because we get to chat with Christal M. Cherry who is a nationally recognized nonprofit executive and professionally trained fundraiser. She has over 20 years in the nonprofit sector and has supported human services organizations, faith-based missions, and higher education institutions. Christal has collaborated, interfaced, and guided diverse boards made up of college presidents, bishops and ministers, corporate CEOs, politicians, and more.    Highlights from our conversation include:   How Christal serves in her role (1:04) Christal's 23-year nonprofit journey (2:41) Stepping out to help other nonprofits  (4:09) What you should be prioritizing in your board governance (5:10) Tracking and maintaining information in your board and donors (7:46) Other ways Christal is changing the world (10:45)   I hope today's episode helped you understand the importance of engaging and interacting with your donors as well as your board members. If you have any questions or want to connect with Christal, you can visit her website and on LinkedIn. You can also learn more about Christal's children's book Mac and Cheez: Being Different is Okay on Amazon. Sign up for the webinar on Thursday - Discover How You Can Boost Your Income And Reach As A Nonprofit Organization Through Being More Open About Your Finances....Without Losing Sight of Your Mission! Also, don't forget about Accounting for Your Goals: IRS Form 990 which will be held on February 22nd.  If you want to continue the conversation, be sure to find me on Instagram and send me a DM! I would love to hear more about you and your nonprofit!    Are you enjoying the show? Be sure to head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a rate and review of the show! I'd love to hear from you.

Mark A. Pfister is the CEO and Chief Board Consultant at M. A. Pfister Strategy Group, a strategic advisory and “Board Architecture” firm for executives, boards, and board advisors in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Known as “The Board Architect,” Mark is also the best-selling author of Across The Board: The Modern Architecture Behind an Effective Board of Directors. His monthly board letter reaches over 27,000 board leaders in over 70 countries. Mark is a certified Executive Masters Professional Director, and Cyber Intelligence Professional. He completed Harvard Business School's Executive Education Program for board directors and previously served as an Engineering Officer in the U.S. Merchant Marines. In this episode… How do you oversee a mechanism that is rapidly changing? Keeping a balance between governance and strategy is essential for growth, both for the organization's team and the board. So, how can your board weather a supply chain disruption and still grow? Mark A. Pfister, CEO and Chief Board Consultant at M. A. Pfister Strategy Group, is laser-focused on the executive leadership and board space. He has experience across multiple facets of the industry and knows how to integrate governance and strategy within your board — like the fact that your board needs to be savvy to new processes and different technologies in order to thrive during accelerated times. Mark knows a board is not just about bureaucracy; it's about having the ability from a governance standpoint to be directly integrated into the strategy. In this episode of the Measure Success Podcast, Carl J. Cox talks with Mark A. Pfister, CEO and Chief Board Consultant at the M. A. Pfister Strategy Group, about the insight and governance of a board. Mark explains the ways the architecture and efficacy of a board links with an organization's team, how the pandemic accelerated the digital transformation in the executive space, and the direct correlation of governance to strategy simultaneity. Stay tuned!

In this episode of Nonprofit Architect, Travis talks with Mark Pfister.  His popular book, 'Across The Board: The Modern Architecture Behind an Effective Board of Directors,' an Amazon best-seller with circulation in over 70 countries, has influenced a whole new generation of Board Directors. Travis and Mark talk about setting up a Board, finding the perfect Board Members, and structuring a Board that will be successful. Conversation Highlights:  {00:48} About Mark Pfister. {02:47} Background on Mark's Board and what it looks like. {06:48} The size and structure of a modern Board without wasting bureaucracy. {12:05} Being a Chief Executive Officer, and what Mark's organization looks like. {17:34} When you have top-level guys, especially on boards, working on something they have no business spending time on?  {25:02} Being challenged to ask uncomfortable questions, not being compliant.   {28:24} What happens when you are stuck with a sudden emergency that knocks you off your feet. {31:19} Be open to feedback. Once you have your mission have you checked your impact on the community? Are you meeting your goal? Do you have goals? {35:15} How do you structure awards intentionally, and make sure you are starting your board or recreating your board with the success that you want to have sure?  {40:58} Why having a marketing expert on the board is essential. {42:03} Where do you find the perfect board members? {46:49} Planning for the future and picking board members that will spread your message. {49:42} Why Mark has worked on over 800 Boards. {55:18} Advice for Board of Directors, preparing for the eventual changing of the guard.   Remarkable quotes:  90 plus percent of their problems or inefficiencies are due to the fact they were not structured properly from the beginning.  You must know where you came from to know where you are going.  I think this is one of the biggest misses right now that a board is viewed as a hindrance. 20% of the time, as a CEO or Executive Director, I'm going to now put on a different hat and I'm going to ask questions 80% of the time and give my opinion or my input 20% of the time. The maturity of that decision-maker's ability to allow for discourse, but not take it as an example as a personal attack on them. A board director is not going to be comfortable going out and representing a program, that is not as impactful as it should be.  Three components create the depth of the board.  The vertical component creates your expertise Influence. The horizontal component is your planes of congruence that create your character and then your coverage and balance create the depth of the board. If you can get those three areas balanced in some way, these boards are unstoppable.      Resources:  Mark@PfisterStrategy.com      Bio: Mark A. Pfister   With a strong focus in Strategy, Governance, and Technology / Cybersecurity, Mark A. Pfister is CEO & Chief Board Consultant of M. A. Pfister Strategy Group, an executive advisory firm that serves as a strategic advisory council for executives and Boards in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. He is also Chairman & CEO of Integral Board Group, a specialized Board services and consulting company.    Mr. Pfister is a 'Board Macro-Influencer' and his success has been repeated across a wide range of business situations and environments. He prides himself on being a coach and mentor to senior executives and directors.    In Board Director circles, Mr. Pfister has earned the nickname 'The Board Architect.' The overarching theme throughout his career has been his aptitude in leadership positions, passionate focus on people, unique governance models, and ability to create value for stakeholders through innovative business strategies and operational excellence.    Michael Lorelli, Executive Chairman of Rita's Franchise Company, has said, “Mark's unusual combination of excelling at a macro and micro grasp of business, genuine interest in Governance, and ability to coach and mentor a Management Team make him a terrific Independent Director.” Mr. Pfister is a certified project management professional and frequently serves as an expert Project Executive, consulting on global projects in their initiation and operational phases, as well as programs requiring remedial focus to bring them back on track. He has deep knowledge and experience in Board design & operations, strategic planning, business transformation, technology implementations, decisioning processes, continuing education programs, executive coaching, and governance models.    Previously, Mr. Pfister was CEO of Pro4ia, Inc., an international consulting and professional services company specializing in a wide range of technology solutions utilizing formal Project Management as a proven and repeatable delivery method. With a Fortune 50 client list, Pro4ia was Citibank's Nominee for Crain's Magazine 'Entrepreneurship of the Year' Award in 2005. He simultaneously served as CEO of Onit, Inc., a national sourcing company specializing in placements for all levels of technology skill sets.   Mr. Pfister was also the National Program Office Leader for American Express leading some of the largest technology transformation initiatives in the company's history. He served as a Licensed Engineering Officer in the U.S. Merchant Marine, holds a B.S. from the State University of New York Maritime College in Facilities Engineering, and completed Harvard Business School's Executive Education Program for Board Directors.   Mr. Pfister is the creator of the ‘Board as a Service' (BaaS) engagement model, an industry he is credited with inventing. He is a Master Speaker and conducts national speaking tours, lectures, and seminars focused on effective leadership, strategy, Board architecture, becoming an exceptional Board Director candidate, professional project/program management, and entrepreneurship.    His popular book, 'Across The Board: The Modern Architecture Behind an Effective Board of Directors,' an Amazon best-seller with circulation in over 70 countries, has influenced a whole new generation of Board Directors.    Mr. Pfister is a proficient Board Director and CEO with experience across multiple industry verticals. He is typically the Chair, or a member of the Strategic Planning Committee, Governance Committee, Technology & Cybersecurity Committee, and Nominating Committee. Mr. Pfister's experience as a renowned Board Consultant, having guided and coached hundreds of Boards, Board Committees, and Board Members, additionally offers up unique and informed viewpoints to the companies he serves.    He holds an Executive Masters Professional Board Certification through the American College of Corporate Directors (ACCD), is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) through the Project Management Institute (PMI), holds a Global ESG Certification through Competent Boards, and holds a Certified Cyber Intelligence Professional Board Certification (CCIP) through the McAfee Institute.           Nonprofit Architect Podcast Links     Website: http://nonprofitarchitect.org   Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NonprofitArchitect    Ultimate Podcast Guide https://www.fatfreecartpro.com/ecom/gb.php?&i=1698463&cl=377219&c=cart&ejc=2&custom=card Subscribe and leave a review https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nonprofit-architect-podcast/id1481292481 Patreon https://www.patreon.com/NonprofitArchitect Watch on YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQm8fnR2sHyrmLpV2jKYajA Listen to these other great podcasts from Veterans. https://nonprofitarchitect.org/veteran-podcast-network/ Want help getting your podcast started? https://nonprofitarchitect.org/podcast-production-services/

Check out this video preview of The Nonprofit Architect Podcast where Travis interviews Mark Pfister.  His popular book, 'Across The Board: The Modern Architecture Behind an Effective Board of Directors,' an Amazon best-seller with circulation in over 70 countries, has influenced a whole new generation of Board Directors. Travis and Mark talk about setting up a board, finding the perfect Board Members, and structuring a board that will be successful. You don't want to miss the full episode, which will be released Tuesday, July 13th, 2021!  Be sure to subscribe to the podcast using your favorite podcast player!  i.e. Apple Podcast, Google Play, or Spotify    Excited to announce we made Feedspot's Top 45 Nonprofit Podcasts! Check out the full list at https://blog.feedspot.com/nonprofit_podcasts/ 

Douglas Nelson, the Founder of The Discovery Group, lists down the essential roles of effective board members that help keep them aligned, engaged, and satisfied with their involvement in organizations. He notes that these roles make or break organizations as they ensure the success and alignment of the boards across the sector. Douglas also explains how these roles affect the whole organization and why they are important elements that make up a successful board as a not-for-profit social profit leader in Canada.

I interviewed Jeanie Latz | Board and Governance Consultant on Friday, July 17th, 2020. We discussed several topics including: Her Journey to Board Consultant Better Results with Diversity  Helpful Tips for Getting Involved with Boards Board Composition Trends The ESG Question  Signs of an Effective Board   Bringing Work In-House & Managing Legal Spend  A Hostile Takeover Story Bill and Melinda Gates  _______________________________________________ Give Feedback Please share your feedback for the show, who I should interview, and the topics that interest you right now.  _______________________________________________ Links referred to in this episode: Jeanie Latz | LinkedIn Profile National Association of Corporate Directors Website Society for Corporate Governance Website Adam J. Epstein | The Perfect Corporate Board: A Handbook for Mastering the Unique Challenges of Small-Cap Companies Netflix | Inside Bill's Brain