Boards for founders: how boards add the most value to high-growth companies

Summary:
Learnings from a conversation with Dominic Joseph about the value that boards add to high growth companies and their founders. Dominic Joseph is Co-Founder of Captify, Founding Partner at Creative Capital Ventures Group, and Co-Founder at PatientMaster.Ai. He is Chair at planet.fans and board member and/or advisor at Vyde, Fy!, Naurt, Milk & Water and reboxed.

Main Body of Content:
In conversation with Nurole’s Oliver Cummings, Dominic provides insights into how any high growth business can get the best out of their Board. Dominic highlights the importance of a strong Chair / CEO relationship, a board dynamic rooted in clear expectation management, and having a clear strategy for engaging with Investor Directors.

➕No bombs: “I think dropping bombs in a board meeting, where people are hearing it for the first time, never works well. I would avoid doing that at all costs. You learn over the years to manage expectations, to eke out bad news in advance on an individual basis, if you can. Because people start to behave differently, if they're in a pack, and you get the worst behaviour out of everyone on the board.”

➕Make space for board time with just the CEO: “At the end of the board meeting, we'd always have an extra session with just me on my own. And that was always a really interesting session. It would often take 30min-1hr, and the board might say, “how are you coping?” Or it might be things about the leadership team, the structure of it and the workload that people have … that was always a good experience.”

➕Use investor-directors wisely: “there's been an extraordinary situation that happened globally with debt prices going so high suddenly … and everyone's cash getting depleted very quickly. And that again, could be a very helpful time to be using [investor-director’s] experience of how to negotiate with the bank, for example, and how to restructure your deal. So there's many useful things you can get from investors, but you need to be clear about what you want from them. It might not be helpful to debate items on a product road map with investors, for example.”

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