Boards
I love writing and speaking about board meetings. Why? Because: * They're critically important. Board meetings can make or break careers. * You get little to no instruction on how to do them. Most training for CEOs and execs is of the "throw them in the deep end of
Boards
It all began with a simple question: why do European board meeting minutes look so different from American ones? The first time you read the typical minutes from an American board of directors meeting, you freak out because they feel so devoid of content. After a while, you get used
Boards
I’ve been CEO of two startups and on the board of about ten. That means I’ve presented a lot of operating plans to boards. It also means I've had a lot of operating plans presented to me. Frankly, most of the time, I don’t love
Boards
[Restructured. See notes.] I think board meetings should have more discussions and fewer proposals. Why? * The hardest questions often don't lend themselves well to proposals. Think: global warming, cultural divisiveness. Or, in business: investor alignment, exit strategy, or a flawed corporate strategy. You're not going to
Boards
I'll be speaking next month in Barcelona on the first day of SaaStr Europa, held at the International Convention Center on June 7th and 8th. My presentation is scheduled at 11:25AM on June 7th and entitled The Top 5 Scale-Up Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.
Boards
Have you ever been to a board meeting where 60 minutes were allocated on the agenda for discussion of a strategic topic? What happened in that session? * You probably started late because board meetings are hard to keep on time. * Some exec, maybe the CEO, probably presented a "few
Boards
A corporate lawyer friend once told me to think about director protections as a triangle with three legs [1]: * D&O insurance, which stands for directors and officers insurance (and with which most people are familiar) * Indemnification agreements (with which some people are familiar) * Charter provisions (with which it
Boards
There's only one executive who should ever say, "the board brought me in," and that is the chief executive officer (CEO). Yet, you'd be surprised how often you hear other executives -- chief revenue officers (CROs), chief marketing officers (CMOs), chief product officers (CPOs), and
Boards
I'm writing this from both the perspective of a former CEO (who would occasionally get sideways with his board) and that of a six-time independent board member. I'll look first from the CEO perspective, examining what I wanted in an independent board member (aka non-
Boards
I'm a SaaS metrics nut and I go to a lot of SaaS board meetings, so I'm constantly thinking about (among other things) how to produce a minimal set of metrics that holistically describe a SaaS company. In a prior post, I made a nice one-
Boards
I was talking to a founder friend of mine the other day, and she made a comment about her startup's search for its first non-founder (aka, "professional") CEO. She said the following about the nearly one-year recruiting process: "Because every person in the
Boards
Over the years I've noticed how different CEOs take different degrees of ownership and accountability when it comes to the board of directors. For example, once, after a long debate where the board unanimously approved a budget contingent on reducing proposed R&D spending from $12M to