8 Things to Consider When Augmenting Your Board

When thinking about bringing new talent and expanding your board or senior executive team, whether they are family or non-family, there are some key things you should consider. 

1. Ensure you have a clear and concise strategy for your family business - ideally you should be able to summarise it on a single page of paper and it should be intelligible and repeatable for the most junior person in your business.

2. Systematically review what is required to deliver that strategy and where the corresponding gaps exist in your senior executive team and board

3. Summarise what each of the prospective hires will have achieved in five years time if they have done a great job - this should form the basis of your role specification

4. Invest the time, and hire the external resource if required, to ensure you identify the breadth and depth of candidates to pick from so that you don’t settle for “good enough” - avoid being the one to “ask round the local athletics club”

5. Invest the time and resource to thoroughly assess and test prospective new hires - you shouldn’t rely on voodoo hiring methods like “gut instinct”. Investing in specialised professional diligence support can bring objectivity if it’s not something you have done a lot and have a successful track record doing

6. Set new hires up to succeed by developing an onboarding process and giving the new hire the time and space to form their own views without feeling under pressure to rush to judgements at the outset. Assigning them a mentor from within the family can help them to navigate any future challenges

7. Start succession planning early - with forty percent of board directors saying they’d feel unprepared if the Chief Executive of their company were to leave unexpectedly it’s worth reviewing our CEO succession planning guide which draws on conversations with over thirty inspirational business leaders

8. Consider taking on a board role outside of your own company. If you have founded or been running your own business you will certainly have much value to add to another company and while you may not think you have the time, your own organisation will benefit infinitely more from what you learn and can bring back, than the ‘lost’ time you spend away

Find out more about the opportunities, challenges and some key advice on expanding your Board and employing non-family talent, here.

About the author

Oliver Cummings is the COO of Nurole, an innovative technology company disrupting the senior executive and board level talent market through its unique candidate-led recruitment platform. Nurole has helped a number of leading family-owned businesses including the world’s largest manufacturer of electrical heating Glen Dimplex, Europe’s largest catering equipment supplier Nisbets, leading shirt retailer Charles Tyrwhitt and Dyson family office Weybourne, access some of the best candidates globally to augment their board and senior executive talent pool.