during a presentation at her company's board of directors

13 Tips on How To Nail a Presentation To the Board of Directors

Published: January 13, 2021

In college, I always made it a point to listen intently to presentations. I knew how stressful and nerve-racking it was to present in a room of peers and authority figures.

I would nod feverishly to let presenters know I was invested in their presentation. And they knew it too. They often zeroed in on me as I became their focus point and silent motivator. The fixation felt awkward at times, but that felt like one of my small contributions to society. That, and an endless supply of cat videos.

Back then, the stakes were relatively low. But when you’re tasked with putting together a presentation to a board of directors, the pressure’s on.

But with a few tricks in your arsenal, you won’t need a sympathetic audience member to gauge how well you’re doing.

Let’s walk through some tips to prepare for your presentation and review some things to avoid.

How To Make a Presentation To the Board

• Know your audience.
• Plan ahead.
• Structure your presentation.
• Keep it concise.
• Set up early.
• Incorporate visuals into your presentation.
• Focus on results.
• Send materials beforehand.
• Build confidence with your power outfit.
• Rehearse your script.
• Don't fall into the PowerPoint Trap.
• Read the room.
• Include time for questions.

1. Know your audience.

Knowing your listeners is as important as the content of your presentation. When you understand their priorities, you can put together a presentation that speaks directly to them.

If you don't know the board well, do some research and get answers to these questions:

What does the board care about?

This will help you see from what lens they look at things. For instance, a board keen on community impact may not be drawn to a presentation focused on return on investment (ROI).

There are a few ways to find this out. You can start by looking into each board member’s professional background. If most members have a finance background, for instance, you’ll want to make sure you cover any financials as it relates to your presentation. This could be cost, expected ROI, or operating margins.

You can also get some insight into what the board cares about by looking back at your interactions with its members. Think about the conversations you’ve had: What comes up most often? Is it company culture, profit, philanthropy, innovation, or something else?

What are their main concerns?

A board of directors is responsible for making decisions that will ensure the growth and sustainability of a company. So naturally, they will be looking out for anything that may impede that process.

Common concerns a board may have are:

• Costs: How much time and money will it require?
• Timeline: How long will this project take and is that timeline feasible?
• Risks: How risky is your proposal and what is the risk-to-return ratio?

You may find that each board member has a different focus, which means your presentation should be well-rounded to tackle these issues.

Once you know this answer, you can subtly handle each concern throughout your presentation. Getting those answers will help you create a presentation that not only interests your audience but also aligns with their goals. This, in turn, will bring you much closer to accomplishing the plans laid out in your presentation.

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2. Plan ahead.

The next step in delivering a great presentation is making a plan. This means figuring out the focus of your presentation, what you’ll cover, and what you’ll leave out.

A presentation should follow the structure of any good movie, with a beginning, middle, and an end. Here’s an example outline for a presentation where the head of the marketing team is proposing course offerings as a new lead generation channel.

The middle is the meat and potatoes of your presentation. You'll likely spend time providing data, contextualizing it, and explaining your approach.

Your ending should bring together your key points and leave your audience with actionable steps. Because what good is providing the information if you have no plan for what to do moving forward?

3. Structure your presentation based on the board’s process.

Not every board of directors operates in the same way. Sure, there are standard guidelines for every meeting. However, the approach may vary for presentations.

Some may operate more like a town hall, pausing periodically to discuss the points as they come up. In this case, leave room after each section of your presentation to discuss what was covered.

Others may follow the more standard approach: presentation followed by a discussion. Studies show that humans remember best the beginning and end of what they read, hear, and see. What’s in the middle tends to get lost. With that in mind, consider sharing your most pertinent information toward the beginning and end of your presentation.

4. Keep it concise.

One thing board members aren’t known for is open availability. That said, you want to make the most of your time with them. How do you do that? Stick to the scope of the presentation.

While it’s great to incorporate storytelling, avoid getting sidetracked and wasting time. Be clear and keep it simple.

If you’re showing data, only share one highlight per data graph. There are several reasons for this:

• Data itself doesn’t tell a story. You, as the presenter, do. As such, you have to explain what it means and why it matters. Let’s say lead generation at your company has plateaued in the past year across all channels. That’s all the data says. But during your research, you realize it’s due to a shift in how your audience is consuming information. Your role is to present the data and explain the "why" behind the plateau along with a solution.
• You want to prevent information overload. Share the piece of data that best supports your points and has the most impact. For instance, if a new lead generation channel is the focus of your presentation, diving into the specifics of another channel may not be worth your time. Tools like Diligent Boards can help ensure directors receive a complete yet concise view of information directly pertinent to them, so you’re not overwhelming them with unnecessary details.

If you leave it to your audience to make sense of the data, they might reach a conclusion that doesn’t align with your message.

5. Set up early.

There’s nothing more awkward than silence during a technical difficulty.

Everyone’s looking at you while you’re figuring out why technology has forsaken you. The more time the issue takes to resolve, the more panicked you get. We’ve all been there.

To avoid this, set up early and do a run-through before your scheduled presentation time. It’ll give you time to get familiar with the space and any technology you’ll need to run during your presentation.

6. Incorporate visuals into your presentation.

When choosing between words and media, pick the latter.

Visuals help us make sense of information at a much quicker pace than words do. We’re also better at remembering what we see versus what we hear by 55% – it’s called pictorial superiority .

It’s also beneficial to keep your visuals simple. If you have too much going on, your audience will be confused. But if it’s too bare, it will take too many visuals to paint the picture. So, pull your most significant data and use data visualization tools to design intuitive graphics.

7. Focus on results.

A board of directors typically focuses on big-picture decisions that will have a long-term impact on the company.

In this vein, every piece of your presentation should get you closer to answering these questions:

• " Why does this matter? "
• " What is the long-term impact? "
• " How does this bring the company closer to its goals? "
• " Any potential roadblocks? How will you address them? "

Incorporating these answers into your presentation will set you up for a smoother Q&A session.

8. Send materials beforehand.

Depending on what you’ll be covering in your presentation, it may be helpful to send the board materials to review in advance. This should only be supplemental information that would be too time-consuming or distracting to cover in a presentation, like reports and demos. This way, the focus during the presentation will be on the "why" and not the "how."

The one material you don’t want to send is your presentation, as you want to be the one to contextualize it. Otherwise, the board might form an opinion based on limited information.

A week before the meeting is a good rule of thumb, leaving room for you to respond to initial comments or feedback.

Think of this process as an advantage. You get insight into what the board members may bring up during the meeting and more context to prep. Secondly, it ensures everyone is on the same page ahead of the meeting. That way, you can dive straight into key points during your presentation without covering minute details.

9. Build confidence with your power outfit.

Building confidence is one of the less concrete tips on the list to implement. But the good news is, there are research-backed techniques you can use to achieve it. One of them is right within your reach: clothing.

Many of us can relate to the feeling of trying on clothes in a fitting room and feeling like a million bucks. It tends to put us in a better mood and shift our perspective.

Well, turns out there’s a reason for this. In 2012, two researchers coined the term " enclothed cognition " to refer to the impact clothes can have on the psyche. They found that the clothes we wear can shift our perspective.

In that spirit, put on your best blazer or suit the day of your presentation. That outfit may be just the boost you need.

10. Rehearse your script.

During a presentation with a board of directors, you want to avoid the Michael Scott approach at all costs.

Instead, go the exact opposite route: practice. Practice is the cure to presentation jitters and the formula for seamless delivery. The more familiar you become with your content, the better the presentation will be.

If it’s been a while since your last presentation, start by practicing in the mirror. You’ll immediately notice any mannerisms that may be distracting to your audience. Recording yourself also works great.

Then, practice in front of an audience. And, unfortunately, your dog won’t cut it for this one. Practice with family or friends who can give you feedback on how to improve.

And remember: You’re the only one who knows your speech and presentation. So, if you mess up or forget to mention something, you’re likely the only one who noticed.

11. Don’t fall into the PowerPoint trap.

You’ll likely use a tool like PowerPoint to guide you during your presentation. Yet, it’s important that you don’t overly depend on it.

For instance, packing your slides with heavy text or bullet points is a surefire way to lose your audience. In fact, 40% of respondents in a 2018 study by Prezi said it caused disengagement and made it harder to retain information.

So, stick to one key point on each slide. It’s easier for your audience to remember and prevents information overload.

12. Read the room.

Even if you follow every tip listed above, you might hit a point in your presentation where there’s a disconnect between you and your audience. You might notice confused looks or a shift in body language. If that happens, that’s your cue to pivot.

If your audience seems confused, dive in a little bit deeper on your point. If you sense disagreement, tackle those concerns head-on.

Let’s say you’re proposing a new initiative for the company, and you sense some pushback on the timeline.

You can address it by saying something along the lines of, " You may have some concern regarding the timeline and whether it’s feasible given our current projects. While the timeline may seem tight, we have factored in X, Y, and Z, and, given our past initiatives, we believe this timeline will account for A, B, and C ."

A response like this can mitigate the situation while still keeping you on track.

13. Include time for questions.

As a foodie, dinner for me isn’t complete without a good piece of chocolate. Whether it’s a KitKat or a chocolate cake, having chocolate after dinner feels like the perfect ending. Q&A sessions are kind of like that. It’s the audience’s chance to ask questions and discuss the presentation.

Be ready for questions regarding the data and solutions you presented. The length of the Q&A session will vary depending on the length of your presentation, the size of the board, and other factors.

Additionally, it’s your opportunity to address any looming concerns and re-emphasize your key points. Not sure what to do if you don’t have an answer to something? Here are a few responses:

• "That’s a great question. I don’t have an answer for you at the moment, but I will follow up over email by end of day."
• "I don’t have much experience in that X [topic/department/]. However, I will reach out to X and get back to you within a week."
• "We haven’t explored that yet, but what I can tell you is …"
• "That’s a great point we hadn’t considered before. My team and I will reconvene and strategize on the best way to approach this."

When the stakes are so high, a presentation to the board can seem daunting. By incorporating these tips into your strategy, you can remove the stress and focus instead on your delivery.

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Board of directors presentation: The all-in-one guide

Learn how to craft a persuasive pitch, deliver your presentation with confidence.

Raja Bothra

Building presentations

When it comes to presenting to your board of directors, it's not just another run-of-the-mill presentation. You're facing a unique audience with high expectations and critical decisions to make.

In this guide, we'll delve deep into the art of creating impactful board of directors presentations. Whether you're a seasoned presenter or just starting out, these insights will help you shine in front of your board members.

Art of presenting to your board of directors

Presenting to your board of directors is a skill that can significantly impact your organization's success. It's a chance to convey your ideas, strategies, and achievements in a way that aligns with the company's goals and values.

Board of directors: The pillars of governance

The board of directors, often referred to as the "board," plays a crucial role in steering the company. They are responsible for major decisions, overseeing company performance, and ensuring it stays on course. Understanding the dynamics of the board is key to a successful presentation.

Board members: Your audience

Your board members are a diverse group with varying backgrounds and expertise. They bring their unique perspectives to the table. Addressing their specific needs and concerns is essential to a successful presentation.

Slide design: Crafting visual impact

In board presentations, slides are your canvas. Use them to create a visual narrative that complements your verbal communication. Avoid overcrowding slides with text. Instead, focus on concise, visually appealing slides that enhance your message.

Board meeting dynamics

Board meetings are structured events where presentations are made, decisions are taken, and strategies are discussed. Understanding the flow and purpose of a board meeting is crucial to your presentation's success.

Purpose of a board of directors presentation: Why do we need one?

Why present to the board.

Every board of directors presentation serves a distinct purpose. Whether it's a quarterly performance update or a strategic proposal, your presentation should align with the board's needs and expectations.

The long-term value proposition

Remember, your presentation should not just be about the here and now. It should convey the long-term value your strategies and initiatives bring to the company.

How to structure an effective board of directors presentation

A well-structured presentation is like a well-organized roadmap. It guides your board members through your ideas, helping them understand and appreciate your perspective.

1. Title slide :

• Start with a compelling title that summarizes the purpose of the presentation.
• Include your company logo and the date of the presentation.

2. Agenda :

• Create a slide that outlines the agenda for the presentation.
• This helps set expectations for what will be covered.

3. Introduction :

• Begin by introducing yourself and your role within the company.
• Provide a brief overview of the presentation's purpose and goals.

4. Company overview :

• Present a concise overview of your company, including its history, mission, and key achievements.

5. Financial highlights :

• Share key financial metrics and performance indicators.
• Use charts and graphs to visualize data for easy comprehension.

6. Operational updates :

• Discuss recent operational developments, such as product launches, market expansion, or cost-saving initiatives.

7. Market analysis :

• Provide insights into the industry landscape, market trends, and competitive positioning.

8. Strategic initiatives :

• Detail any strategic initiatives, projects, or goals your company is pursuing.

9. Risk assessment :

• Identify and assess potential risks and challenges your company may face.
• Explain your mitigation strategies.

10. Financial projections :

• Present future financial projections, including revenue forecasts and expense estimates.

11. Recommendations :

• Offer recommendations or decisions that require the board's input or approval.
• Clearly state the desired outcomes.

12. Q&A session :

• Dedicate a slide to transition into a question-and-answer session.
• Encourage board members to ask questions and seek clarifications.

13. Conclusion :

• Summarize the key points of your presentation.
• Express gratitude for their time and input.

14. Next steps :

• Outline the next steps or actions expected from the board following the presentation.

15. Closing remarks :

• End with closing remarks and thank the board for their attention.
• Reiterate your commitment to the company's success.

16. Appendix (Optional):

• Include any additional data, charts, or supporting documents in the appendix.

Do's and don'ts on a board of directors presentation

Presenting to a board of directors is both an art and a science. Knowing what to do and what to avoid can make or break your presentation.

• Rehearse : Practice makes perfect. Rehearse your presentation to ensure a smooth delivery.
• Keep it concise : Avoid lengthy, meandering explanations. Keep your presentation concise and to the point.
• Engage your audience : An engaging presentation can help board members understand complex topics better.

Don'ts:

• Overload the slides : Avoid overcrowding slides with too much information.
• Copy-paste content : Your presentation should never be a copy of existing documents.
• Lack of preparation : Don't go into a presentation without thorough preparation.

Summarizing key takeaways

• Unique audience expectations: Board presentations are distinct, requiring understanding of the board's unique audience with high expectations and decision-making authority.
• Impactful communication: Craft presentations that effectively convey ideas, strategies, and achievements aligned with the company's values for maximum impact.
• Board governance insights: Recognize the vital role of the board in steering the company, making significant decisions, and maintaining its course.
• Diverse board members: Acknowledge the diverse backgrounds and expertise of board members; cater to their specific needs and perspectives for success.
• Effective presentation structure: Structure presentations thoughtfully, including key elements like agenda, company overview, financial highlights, strategic insights, and a focus on engagement while avoiding common pitfalls.

1. How should I approach discussions and decision-making in the boardroom after my presentation?

After your presentation, discussions in the boardroom are crucial for reaching a consensus and fine-tuning the decision. It's not uncommon that the discussion starts immediately without formal presentations. Be ready to engage with board members, answer questions, and provide additional information if needed. Keep the long-term value and risks in mind during these discussions, as board members generally watch over the long-term value of the company. Your role in the boardroom is not only to present but also to actively participate in the decision-making process.

2. What are some tips for engaging board members during a presentation?

Engaging board members during a presentation is essential for a successful outcome. Here are some tips:

• Craft visually appealing slides that support your content.
• Use bullet points to present key arguments or take-aways.
• Encourage questions and open discussions to foster engagement.
• Keep the presentation concise and focused on what really matters.
• Avoid going into the details of things beside the point.
• Make sure your presentation is based on selected details and numbers that are relevant to your proposal.

3. How should I handle questions and answers (Q&A) during a board presentation?

Handling Q&A during a board presentation requires finesse. Be prepared to answer questions, even if you don't know the answer, but be honest if you don't have the information at hand. Don't take questions lightly, as they can influence the board's decision. Additionally, don't make up information. If necessary, offer to follow up with a detailed response after the presentation. Q&A is an opportunity to provide clarity and ensure the board members understand your proposal.

4. What should I include in the slides of my board of directors presentation?

The content of your presentation slides is crucial. Each slide should contribute to the narrative of your presentation. Use visuals, bullet points, and concise text to convey your message effectively. Your slide deck should be more than a mere copy of the presentation. It should be a visual aid that supports your spoken words. Ensure that your slides align with the purpose of your presentation and the key arguments you want to present. Don't overload the slides with unnecessary information; instead, focus on elements that you want the board to remember.

5. How can I make my board presentation more impactful and memorable?

To make your board presentation impactful and memorable, consider these strategies:

• Craft an inductive story that captures the board's attention from the start.
• Structure your presentation based on the three typical parts: introduction, key arguments, and conclusion.
• Prioritize information quality and unanimity in your presentation.
• Ensure your presentation revolves around what really matters to the board.
• Use connectors for your computer to ensure everything goes as you expected during the presentation.
• Finally, don't forget to express gratitude for their time and attention at the end.

Create your board of directors presentation with Prezent

In the world of board presentations, having the right tools can make all the difference. Prezent, an AI presentation software designed for enterprise teams, can help you create compelling board presentations that are on-brand, engaging, and effective.

With Prezent, you can:

• Craft visually appealing slides that resonate with your board members.
• Save time and effort in creating and sharing presentations.
• Ensure 100% compliance with brand guidelines.
• Collaborate with your team in real-time, even for overnight presentations.

Presenting to your board of directors is a skill that evolves with experience and preparation. Whether it's your first presentation or you're a seasoned presenter, following best practices and leveraging tools like Prezent can help you deliver presentations that leave a lasting impact on your board members. Remember, it's not just about the content; it's about the art of persuasion and engagement.

To further enhance your boardroom presentations, consider incorporating a well-structured Board of Directors meeting presentation template . This valuable tool can guide you in organizing your thoughts, ensuring clarity in your message, and maintaining a professional and polished appearance. So, next time you step into the boardroom, armed with your carefully crafted presentation and utilizing a Board of Directors meeting presentation template, keep in mind the insights and tips shared here. With the right approach and a touch of finesse, you can master the art of presenting to your board of directors.

Are you ready to make a real impact with your presentation to the board? Try our free trial or book a demo today with Prezent!

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Best Tips on How to Present to the Board of Directors in 2022

Top tips for nailing your presentation to The Board 👨‍💻️

13 min read

Table of Contents

You would hope that most people who sit on Boards of Directors know their stuff. They are experienced, proven, successful business leaders (sure, that might not always be the case… but as a rule). So, you need to have your act together whenever you go in front of them. You probably don’t need us to tell you that. You might well be feeling some trepidation at the thought – that’s probably why you’re reading this article. Well, don’t worry, we can help you improve your board presentation skills.

Whether you present to the Board regularly or have one big opportunity to get in front of them and show your stuff, you’ll want to do the best job you possibly can and create an impactful presentation. So, read through our top tips for presenting to the Board and you’ll know exactly how best to approach your presentation. Knowing what you need to do will bring confidence… and that’s half the battle!

We’ll take you through what you need to do to in terms of preparation, what you should consider when it comes to the content of your presentation, and some top tips for delivery.

Here’s our list of tips for nailing any presentation to the Board:

Be well prepared (make sure you have all the materials and information you will need)

Know your audience

Ask to see the full agenda

Don’t use jargon

Know the exact points you want them to remember, use data and benchmarks, make your slides look decent, get your materials right, do not read from notes.

Smile, don’t be afraid of humour

DO NOT go over time

Be ready to answer questions.

So, let’s take a look at each of these points in more detail….

Be prepared

Remember, if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. Don’t wing it. Presenting to the Board is important – even if you’re the CEO and do it regularly, you will almost always be presenting to the Board with a very specific and important goal in mind. Maybe you need to get approval, buy-in or sign-off for an initiative, or you’re hoping to secure investment for a project. Whatever the purpose of your presentation, if you’re in front of the Board, it’s important and worth doing properly.

So, make sure you prioritise this presentation and make the time to properly prepare for your next board meeting. Try not to leave this until the last minute. Ideally, you’ll do your preparation far enough in advance to allow time for you to put it down for a few days and then revisit it with fresh eyes. That’s a great way to double check your key messages are clearly coming through.

And here is exactly what you should do to prepare…

Do your homework on all the Board Members – know their experience and their expertise. And, if you’ve never met them before, make sure to find a photo of them so you can put faces to names and bios.

Knowing their backgrounds and experience will help you craft a presentation that doesn’t patronise or assume knowledge where it isn’t. You can also subtly direct particular parts of your presentation to the most relevant Board Members to help engage them and ensure you have their attention.

Ask to see the full agenda for the Board Meeting

It’s a good idea to know the context you are presenting in so you can get a sense for how the Board Members might be feeling. What are you following? Will they been exhausted from looking at spreadsheets or will they be relatively relaxed after a coffee break? Know your context and present accordingly.

Unless you are 100% confident that everyone in the room will understand it, avoid jargon. And remember, it’s important to explain any technical concepts in a relatable manner in order to keep them engaged. Board Members will be from a variety of backgrounds and experiences (that’s what makes a good Board) so you cannot assume everyone has the same level of knowledge of your area. Don’t take the risk of losing their attention or obscuring your meaning by using language they may not understand.

When planning your content, summarise your presentation and decide what the crucial points you want to get across are. If the Board Members only remember 2 or 3 points about your presentation, what would you want them to be?

When you’ve boiled down what you’re saying to those most important points, look back over your presentation and double check they are coming across loud and clear. Consider making a summary slide and ending the presentation on a reinforcement of those key points.

As it’s often said, it’s hard to argue with facts… so infuse your presentation with as many as possible, especially if you’re trying to win buy-in for something. Back up what you’re saying with data, stats or metrics and key performance indicators. If you make a point about performance improvement, show the data that demonstrates that. If you’re offering a growth projection, show the data that supports that hypothesis.

Then make sure you present that data in an interesting way. Data visualisation is an important skill to have and can help you transform presentations and bring numbers to life. Consider using graphs and diagrams instead of flat figures. This can really help the more visual people in your audience absorb the point you’re trying to make.

Remember, if you’re presenting data, don’t just show the stats without offering some analysis or a conclusion. What does this data tell us? What have you learnt from it? Does it drive any decisions or actions?

Also remember to give the board context for each data point. Is that a good or bad performance? It’s no good showing a conversion rate, for example, without giving any sort of indication as to how that compares to expectations or industry averages. Try to include benchmarks for reference.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t give this the focus it deserves. This is particularly important if you’re going to be one of a series of presentations during the Board session. If you’ve spent the time to make your slides look engaging, then it’ll help you stand out.

If you have slides with a list of bullets, think about how they can be presented in a more visually engaging way. A list of bullets could become a grouping of different icons or images, each illustrating your different points with some supporting words underneath.

It’s worth getting a proper design brain to help you with this. Even if you just ask them to input on a few slides in your deck, you can then take the design improvements they’ve made to those slides and extend the same principles across the whole deck.

Spending time to make your presentation deck look good will not only help engage your audience and get your point across; it also shows that you have put the work in and are taking this seriously. That level of effort won’t go unappreciated by The Board.

No doubt there will be a Board Pack or Board Report you need to contribute to. Get that ready as far as you can in advance. If you do send materials in advance, do assume they’ve been read by the time it comes to your presentation, and don’t just repeat what was in the papers – that’ll feel like you’re wasting the Board Members’ precious time and that will annoy them.

This might seem obvious, but it’s worth noting here so you remember to factor in enough time for this. Some people like to practice in front of a trusted colleague, family member or friend, others are more comfortable in front of the mirror. Either way is good.

How you practice and how much does really come down to personal preference, but just make sure you get to the point where you’re confident in your delivery and you don’t have to struggle to remember what comes next.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that there is such thing as over practising. You don’t want to don’t kill all energy from your presentation and get to the point that you’re just reciting it like a robot!

We’re all for writing down what you want to say – it’s always better to be prepared and have properly thought through what you need to get across and how – but that doesn’t mean you should read it. The secret is to write what you’re going to say and then to learn it.

You can either write a full script, or some detailed notes. If you’re writing a script, it’s extremely important to write as you speak. Don’t think of this as an article or report – it’s a script to be spoken – so worry less about punctation and more about the flow of your words. Try speaking your ideas first… and then write them down.

If you don’t think you can pull off a natural enough delivery of a script, then don’t write one, write notes instead. But then you must practice and practice delivering the presentation based on the notes you have read – this will eliminate ums and errs and hesitations and ensure you have a smooth delivery where you’re confident of everything you’re saying.

Smile, use some humour if the context is right

Make your presentation at least mildly entertaining. People always remember presenters that made them smile, or even laugh. But it’s a fine balance – don’t rock up with a full comedy set, or launch into some physical slapstick humour, whatever you do.

If you opt for some humour, make sure you read the room. If little jokes are not landing, then ditch the rest, they might not be in the mood. And if you know your Board of Directors have zero sense of humour, then just stick to smiling and being upbeat – don’t try for laughs that aren’t there!

And, of course, don’t roll out the gags if the subject is particularly grave or if you’re presenting a cost reduction strategy that involves redundancies.

Give some height to your presentation – establish yourself as someone worth looking up to! It’s all too easy to slouch in a chair – standing up will help you keep a straight posture and look confident.

Standing up will also help open out your diaphragm and enable you to project your voice more successfully. Sure, if you’re in a small room you don’t want to be bellowing at them, but you want to have a straight posture and speak clearly.

If you’ve been given a time to keep to, KEEP TO IT. Board meetings will be busy and have pretty packed agendas. Nothing will annoy Board Members more than you coming in and putting their agenda and timetable out of whack.

This, again, comes down to practice. You need to run through it a few times – remembering to keep a natural and considered pace – so you’re confident you can keep it to time.

And if they haven’t given you a set time, then just be aware that brevity is a good thing. Be mindful of people’s attention span and consider what has come before you on their agenda. If they’re likely to be a bit frazzled from an intense couple of hours, you’ll need to keep things as concise as you can or risk losing them.

Make sure you leave time for a Q&A! Read through your presentation imagining you are a Board Member, try to think of any questions you’d ask. Now either work the answer to those questions into the presentation or be prepared with a considered answer for a Q&A session at the end.

Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know the answer to something. It’s best to say quickly and firmly that you do not know the answer, but you will find out and get back to them. That’s much better than launching into a flustered bumble of BS. A savvy Board Member will spot that a mile off.

Also make sure you answer the actual question asked. So, listen carefully and if you’re unsure what they’re asking, repeat back your understanding of the question to check before answering. Don’t launch into an answer unless you’re very clear what they want to know.

So, those are our top 14 tips for nailing your presentation to The Board. In a nutshell it’s all about being prepared, practiced and confident (which comes from the first two).

One final important tip is to try and enjoy it! Board Members are people like you and I, don’t be unduly worried or intimidated. Enjoy the limelight and good luck!

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Getting asked to present to the board means you’re ‘kind of a big deal.’ Here’s how to do it right

The corporate board is often described as a black box, a powerful members-only club. For some executives, however, the time will come when the club door will swing open, and they’ll be ushered inside. When that day arrives for you, you want to be ready.

An invitation to present to the board is a badge of honor, says Rich Fields, head of the board effectiveness practice at Russell Reynolds. “You don’t get asked to do that if you’re not kind of a big deal at the organization.”

Although the board’s agenda determines who’s asked to speak, the CEO, who makes the invitation, might have their own motive, too, says Jeff Wong, EY’s chief innovation officer. CEOs often want to expose the board to someone worthy of a major leadership role in the future. That way, directors are familiar with the employee when the CEO floats their name at the next board meeting. And if those directors like what they see, they’ll also have more confidence in the CEO’s leadership.

Moreover, engaging with the board and getting exposure may be your stepping stone to landing a future board seat.

The stakes are admittedly high for an executive asked to present to the board, but—and this is paramount—put that aside as you prepare for your big day. The best way to hit the mark during your boardroom debut is to stay focused on your mission, and meet your audience’s needs, says Lisa Edwards, executive chair of the Diligent Institute. (Diligent sponsors this newsletter.) Here’s what that means and how to do it.

Focus on the topic at hand, not every topic under your sun. This was the No.1 piece of advice from every board member, executive, and governance expert interviewed for this guide. When you’re presenting to the board, your mission is to stay narrowly focused on the subjects that most closely align with its goals.

Be selective even if asked to give a general update: What matters most to the board? What are the two or three takeaways you need to drive home? This isn’t a data dump, nor is it about showcasing all of your deep knowledge. It’s about delivering specific information.

Turning the presentation into a show-and-tell moment is the most common error executives make when first appearing in the boardroom, says Edwards. “It’s human nature that you want to show your expertise,” she says. But you can do that by demonstrating you understand the board’s role in the firm. “They don’t want to run your business,” she says. “They want to get assurances that you’re on top of it.”

Hold a premeeting and ask questions. Most board presentations are meant to either a) keep the board informed about a key area of business or b) supply data and context to help the board go deeper on a topic when a strategic decision is needed. Your job in the premeeting with whoever invited you to meet the board—usually the CEO—is to find out exactly what the board expects from you and what they already know.

The questions to ask, according to Fields: What is the key message I need to get across? What actions do I need to get from the board? What questions should I anticipate? What has the board heard about or decided on the subject already?

This pregame tête-à-tête also helps executives understand how much time they should spend preparing the presentation. According to Fields, practiced presenters spend 10 to 15 times the allotted presentation time on prep work. But Deborah Rubin, senior partner and head of RHR International’s Board & CEO Services division, warns that senior team members often spend an outsized amount of time—days or weeks—on boardroom prep, creating unnecessary anxiety and taking the focus off of day-to-day business, when the potential return on investment may not match the effort. 

At smaller companies, executives may have preexisting relationships with board members and should feel comfortable inviting them to a coffee, says Yasmene Mumby, a leadership coach who has worked with organizations like the ACLU,  International Rescue Committee, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. “Instead of at the board meeting that’s very public, and everyone is waiting for something juicy to happen, meet people where they are before the meeting, understand what they care about,” she suggests.

Make your presentation memorable

Only once you understand the scope of your mission can you start preparing your meeting materials: a pre-read deck, slides (if you plan to use them), and the general outline for your short talk. Here’s a lightning round of advice to make your material and delivery stand out:

– Keep your pre-read laser-focused. You’ll be asked to submit reading for the meeting’s “board book,” a collection of documents that board members are expected to read and digest before arriving at a meeting. The length of your pre-read deck will vary depending on the topic and ask. However, some say limiting the pre-read to five pages is a good rule of thumb. Fields typically advises executives to create a first draft and then trim it by half. Peggy Foran, chief governance officer at Prudential and a longtime National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) faculty member, likewise argues that the pre-read has to relay tailored information in as few pages as possible. Use bullet points, she says.

When you feel compelled to add details to flesh out your pre-read, remember that there’s always an appendix. That’s where full financial statements will land and you can slip in additional reading. “By the way, you’d be surprised, a lot of board members go deep into the appendix,” says Jocelyn Mangan, a board member at Papa John’s and CEO of Him For Her, which aims to improve gender diversity on boards.

– Don’t ignore the raw data, especially when it’s requested. Keeping your presentation materials short and well-structured is essential, but some board members—especially new ones or activist investors turned directors—will want to see raw data rather than a carefully curated report. If boards ask for raw data and only receive selected, packaged charts and narratives, says Rubin, they may worry that the company’s leadership team lacks transparency. If you’re unclear on how much detail to offer, ask the CEO or the company’s corporate secretary for a sample presentation.

– Plan on sharing very few, if any, slides. While your pre-read must be carefully edited, your slide deck ought to be positively minimalist. Fields challenges executives to use one slide—to perhaps find one striking visual—to drive home a point.

– Mind your speaking-to-listening ratio. The biggest mistake you can make in a 30-minute presentation is to prepare a 30-minute speech, warns Foran. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, speak for no more than 10 minutes and use the rest of the time to converse with the seasoned professionals in the room. Listen to the directors’ insights, and take their questions. 

– Avoid jargon. If technical terms can not be avoided, include a glossary. Your board presentation and pre-reading can include an educational component for meaty topics like data privacy or sustainability, but the “lesson” shouldn’t take over. Stay out of the weeds as much as possible and offer to send follow-up material.

– Start with the conclusion. Time-pressed directors get impatient and frustrated with long introductions, says Fields. Instead, say, “ Let me start at the end and then provide more detail.” Or, “Here’s the decision we need to make, and here’s where we need your input.” Opening with that one-line scene-setter is “profoundly obvious,” Fields adds, “yet somehow not universally used.”

– Do not read from a script. Nor should you read your slides. “What I want is the color behind it, the nuance,” says Edwards. “Let’s have a conversation about the possible risks or opportunities associated with what you’re talking about.”  

– Provide context. Offering a backdrop helps board members come to their own conclusions about data, Edwards says. “So our risk score has improved. Is that good or bad? What do we look like versus the industry? What do we look like versus our named competitors in the proxy? How do we hold up overall?”

– Remember that boards aren’t insiders. “You see the business every day,” says Michael Maggio, CEO of Reciprocity, a cybersecurity software company. But unlike you and the colleagues you normally present to, the board has spent maybe 30 minutes on this topic in the last 90 days.

“If you’re presenting to a board that you presented to before, give them an update,” Rubin advises. “Link from where you were, what they asked for, what happened, and where you’re moving forward.”

– Connect to the company’s mission. “Executives should always remember that the board’s fiduciary duty is long-term value creation for shareholders while taking other stakeholders into consideration,” Sonita Lontoh, a director at the solar company Sunrun and the workforce solutions firm TrueBlue, suggests in an email to Fortune . “As such, when executives present to the board, they should share insights as to how their topic is helping the company to better navigate material risks and opportunities for long-term value creation.”

– Report the good, the bad, the unclear. Want to demonstrate your leadership skills? Be upfront about what is and isn’t working in your area of business. It may take courage, but it’s your job and an essential part of building trust, says EY’s Wong, who regularly reports to the consulting firm’s board. “The number one thing I want them to know is I’m going to tell them the truth.”

Ashley Kramer, CMSO at GitLab, says her company uses a green, yellow, and red color coding system to give board members a visual guide to where initiatives stand. Most importantly, she says, tell the board how the company plans to keep the good things going and what it will do to monitor and mitigate risks and trouble spots.

– Make the experience tactile. When it makes sense, EY’s Wong allows board members to play with new products or emerging technology as he delivers the presentation. “How do you make it so they can see, feel, and touch it inside their environment?” Wong says. “You don’t just talk about what it is in theory. You show it to them in action.” For product managers and developers, this is an opportunity to demonstrate the potential return on investing in an innovative idea or educate the board about a new development—like virtual learning or ChatGPT—that may impact the company.

That’s a start! Next week’s newsletter will feature the second half of this guide, covering what to expect during your presentation, how to calm public speaking anxiety, and tips to handle inevitable snafus.

Lila MacLellan [email protected] @ lilamaclellan

Onboard/Offboard

IMAX appointed Jen Wong , COO of Reddit, and Gail Berman , CEO of The Jackal Group, to its board. Union Square Venture’s Fred Wilson is taking over as chair of the board for SoundCloud.  Gavin Patterson , former CRO at Salesforce, and Francesco de Mojana, a former partner at Permira, are joining the Wix corporate board; Yuval Coh e n and Roy Saar are stepping down. Vista Outdoor announced that Tig Krekel has resigned from its board effective immediately. Stelios Papadopoulos, chair of the Biogen board, will resign following the company’s general meeting in June; board member Caroline Dorsa will replace him. Former Boeing CFO Greg Smith was elected to become the independent chair of American Airlines, effective April 30; directors Ray Robinson and Jim Albaugh are resigning from the airline’s board.

- In an exclusive interview with Fortune , JetBlue's CEO says the company is ready to expand its flights across the U.S., with or without approval for its merger with Spirit Airlines. 

- Remote work has put more pressure on corporate offsites as the venues for employee bonding. Companies are learning to schedule plenty of unstructured time rather than back-to-back programming.

- Pension funds are pushing back against GOP governments that want to ban companies with ESG agendas from investing in state-run plans. In other words, the backlash to the anti-ESG backlash has begun .

- Greenwashing might be as cynical as it sounds. A global study found that companies that add sustainability committees to their boards see an increase in market value but little change in their carbon footprints. 

- The change might be temporary—and let’s hope it is—but the push for greater boardroom diversity has slowed , according to a new report by Heidrick & Struggles. 

This is the web version of  The Modern Board , a newsletter focusing on mastering the new rules of corporate leadership. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox .

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• CIO strategy

15 tips for delivering a successful presentation to the board

What do you do when everyone thinks they're the smartest person in the room, and all of them are counting on you for answers here's how to give a presentation to the board..

• Robin Gareiss, Metrigy

Over my career, I have had the good fortune to present to all types of audiences -- from major keynotes where the lights are so bright, I couldn't see the 10,000 people in the audience, to classroom settings with 50 or 100 people, to meetings with a handful of people in the room.

My favorite type of presentation is in a boardroom, where a group of insightful, engaged and typically smart people gather to learn, to set strategies, dream of new opportunities and make tough decisions.

While boardroom presentations are my favorite, that's not to say they are easy or stress free. The stakes are always high during a presentation to the leaders of a company, regardless of the topic. Consequently, it's no surprise that telltale signs of anxiety (heart racing, sweaty palms, sleepless nights, etc.) are in full force when these meetings loom.

But nerves can work in your favor if you remember the first rule of giving a talk: The amount of time and effort you put into planning and practicing directly correlates with a successful outcome. Here are some best practices I've learned that will allow you to use that healthy level of nervousness to sharpen the content of your presentation and help ensure success.

This article is part of

The evolving CIO role: From IT operator to business strategist

• Which also includes:
• 10 factors reshaping the role of the CIO in 2024
• Top 7 CIO challenges in 2024 and how to handle them
• 8 free IT strategic planning templates and examples for CIOs

Download this entire guide for FREE now!

1. Know the audience and the logistics of the meeting

Before starting work, ask who will be in the meeting and get biographies and photos of each person. Understand their areas of interests, their education and their expertise. You're there for a reason, so you need to ask, "What can I offer that they don't know already?"

There are also important logistics to inquire about. Basic questions you or your assistant should ask include the following:

• Is the meeting virtual or in person (or more likely these days, a combination of both)?
• What are the coordinates (physical address, virtual bridge, start and end time)?
• Is it OK to arrive early, and if so, can we get set up with our presentation ahead of time?
• Will there be a breakfast or lunch meeting that I should plan to attend?
• What is the dress code?
• Are there any preferences or requirements for technology (i.e., slide size, adapters, etc.)? Will I drive the presentation from my laptop, or do we need to send it to someone (and who) prior to the meeting to load into a broader deck?
• What format of a session does the audience expect (e.g., PowerPoint versus interactive virtual whiteboard)?
• Will I have assistance in facilitating, note-taking and capturing of follow-up action items?

2. Determine what the board needs to hear

Before jumping into the content of your presentation, it's good to know what the audience (in this case, the board) defines as a successful outcome. If it's possible to ask right up front, that will help guide the entire presentation. You could perhaps even survey attendees ahead of time to capture their goals, needs, challenges and anticipated outcomes.

For example, if success is about board members and/or C-level executives learning about a new technology under consideration, the job is to educate them. If success for the board is making a decision based on return on investment, run the ROI and make a recommendation.

At this point, you should estimate how much time you'll need to make the presentation successful and block out the time on your calendar.

3. Create and confirm an agenda

Based on the information gathered, create an agenda that details what the presentation will cover. Place time estimates for what will happen, when, and add extra detail about each section in the agenda document. Ask a colleague for a peer review of your presentation agenda before sending it to the board of directors for approval or revisions, if that step is required. Then, revise if needed and get started on the content.

4. Know your data

No matter what you're presenting, data and metrics are key. You can be incredibly smart and experienced, but your recommendations and insights will hold more weight and be more authoritative if they are backed by data. The data may require primary research, it may rely upon existing dashboards or it may come from third parties. But it needs to be part of your presentation.

5. Create the visual

There are many types of presentations you can create, and the proper one depends on the context. You can do a traditional PowerPoint presentation or consider whiteboard apps such as Miro to deliver your visual display. If the presentation is virtual, consider using technologies that enable interactivity -- i.e., Slido for polling, Prezi for placing you as a speaker in front of your content, or even capabilities such as Zoom or Webex's raise a virtual hand feature for questions. Overall, make sure the presentation follows these guidelines:

• Keep it straightforward. Use the presentation to make key points, but the true content should be in what you say.
• Keep it visual. Showing rows of words typed on a screen isn't adding anything to the talk track, so use visuals to enhance your message.
• Keep it simple. Don't cram too much on each slide or screen. In general, each slide should support one or two key points.

Once it's complete, make sure a colleague reviews it, which brings me to the next point.

6. Find your toughest critic

Run through the presentation with someone you consider to be a tough critic. Don't let your feelings get hurt if that person comes back with some harsh criticism -- that's good! Better now than in the boardroom.

Ask the critic to come up with tough questions, as well. That helps you prepare for what someone might ask you, and it gives you confidence that you've prepared for the tough interrogation.

7. Practice, practice, practice (in front of a mirror)

Regardless of how many times I present, I always practice for a big event. Literally, I practice out loud in front of a mirror, so I can see how I would look to the board. Am I projecting confidence or uncertainty? If the latter, it's time to reassess the content.

A good rule of thumb for presentation preparation is as follows:

• Run through the presentation first with your internal tough critics.
• Make revisions and then practice a day or two before the meeting.
• The night before, practice a third time in front of a mirror again, and get a good night's sleep. Sleep is very important to success. In addition, avoid drinking alcohol the evening prior to a big presentation.

8. Send the presentation -- wait, scratch that

Many speakers recommend sending presentations ahead of time. I disagree. When sending ahead of time, the board members don't have the benefit of context. They don't know what that picture might mean, or what point that chart supports. Worse, they come to the wrong conclusion.

I prefer sending a detailed agenda ahead of time and potentially supporting documents (research studies, product information, background on a project, etc.). But my recommendation is to send the presentation after you've given it, so the audience has the right context. Also, there might be questions that you'd like to address or clarify in the presentation before sending it. You can then address any issues prior to sending to the board.

9. Dress for success

This is a tougher decision than it should be. At first glance, you would think a suit is the right apparel for a board meeting, and most of the time, it is. But I've also arrived in a suit to meetings where board directors are wearing jeans and sweaters -- and then I feel too overdressed. It's acceptable to ask in the logistics meeting what the dress code is so that you align yourself with the "feel" of the room. Without that information, I would always dress up as a sign of respect and seriousness of the task at hand.

10. Arrive to the meeting early

Given any number of issues that could cause delay (traffic, car trouble, security upon entering the building, etc.), arrive an hour ahead of the scheduled start time.

11. Visualize the outcome

Several times before any big presentation, close your eyes and visualize the outcome: You're done with the presentation and the board members are shaking your hand saying, "Great job! That was fantastic. I learned a lot. I trust you to lead this project."

12. Bring an assistant

If budget and permissions allow, having an assistant in the meeting is incredibly valuable to track follow-up items, take notes relevant to your role, handle any technical issues and to provide any other support needed during the meeting.

13. Control the flow

It's important to stay on schedule, but you also want to allow flexibility, including time for questions. This is a balancing act. I typically like to allow interruptions at any time because if someone is hung up on something I said, they may not listen to anything else until that question is addressed.

14. Display confidence -- and humility

The practice sessions should inject confidence in your ability to deliver a stellar presentation. Remember, if you're there, you're there for a reason. You should have confidence. But that confidence shouldn't spill over to arrogance. In fact, it's important to have humility, as well. If you don't have an answer to a question, it's perfectly acceptable to say: "That's actually a great question, and I'm not sure of the answer. But I assure you, I'll have it for you after this meeting." Or, "That's a great question, and I don't have a hard-data answer, but I can give you an opinion on it."

15. Follow up promptly and measure success

Once the session is over, the quicker the follow-up, the better. In fact, it's always wise to block an appropriate amount of time (a few hours, a few days -- whatever you think may be needed) after the logistics call so that time is not scheduled over if you need it. Then, ask how it went and whether you achieved the predefined success criteria.

About the author Robin Gareiss is CEO and principal analyst at Metrigy, where she oversees research product development, conducts primary research and advises leading enterprises, vendors and carriers. For more than 25 years, Robin has advised hundreds of senior IT executives, ranging in size from Fortune 100 to Fortune 1000, developing technology strategies and analyzing how they can transform their businesses. Read more about her experience here .

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• Startup Strategy

Beyond the numbers: What a CFO learned about presenting to a board

• 12 min listen

Key Takeaways

• An effective board presentation tells a nuanced and rich story about a company’s successes and missteps, its challenges and missteps.
• Never spring surprises on the board during a presentation, especially if the unexpected information amounts to bad news.
• Develop relationships with directors outside of the boardroom to build trust and establish effective communication channels.

Delivering a “State of the Business” update is an art—here’s how Palvi Mehta fined-tuned it over countless board meetings

Palvi Mehta still remembers the first time she presented to a board of directors. It was early in her career, and Mehta was CFO of a venture-backed telecommunications startup. In slide after slide, she dutifully went through the company’s financials, shining a spotlight on key figures in the income statement, balance sheet and cash position.

When she finished, and the board began discussing the state of the business, she was surprised: the conversation made almost no reference to what she had just presented. “Very little of what they were interested had to do with a snapshot of a moment in time,” Mehta says.

The meeting proved educational for Mehta, as she quickly processed a couple of valuable lessons. “Talking to the board is not about presenting a series of numbers,” she says. “It’s about telling a story. And people don’t necessarily know how to do that.”

What’s more, like any storyteller, she was supposed to understand her audience. But Mehta had failed to build any kind of rapport with her board ahead of that first meeting. As a result, she had no sense of what her board members cared about.

Mehta has since had a storied career as CFO at multiple Seattle-area startups. Over a dozen or so years—and some 100 board presentations—she has mastered the art of telling the “State of the Business” story.

Mehta, who currently serves as CFO of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup “studio” and venture fund, recently sat down with Silicon Valley Bank to talk about communicating effectively with her boards.

Going back to that first meeting, you said it was not about basic numbers. How did you realize that updating board members on the business required you to tell a story?

The raw numbers were probably the least interesting part. They could just read those on their own. What was interesting to them were figures like revenue per user, the contract pipeline and how that related to the rate of growth. It was hard for them to get that color from slides.

As I started working with them more, I was able to understand what was relevant. They cared about the impact of new products and of discounts we offered on margins. They cared a lot about the number of customers, since it’s an industry with few but large customers. Were we in a contract? What kind of commitments had we received? It was a lot about trends and projections. What does your expense makeup going forward look like? How much is in sales? How much is in G&A versus R&D? Your bookings per productive salesperson give you a picture of both your efficiency and your growth. And having a historical context of whether we were trending positively or negatively was vital.

So did you change your approach immediately?

I wouldn't say it was an epiphany right after the first meeting. But pretty quickly, I stopped presenting financials. I would just email them. My slides were built around trends and charts and relied heavily on visuals. It's much easier for people to digest visual information. I also spent the time to tease out trends so board members can get their heads around something in a very easy and quick way.

The foundational piece is describing the whys behind important trends, but not all trends. Some trends aren't that interesting. You may not need to call out something that hasn’t changed. You want to draw the board’s attention to the things that are most relevant in that quarter or that changed either positively or negatively. You need to make sure they don't have to go dig for that information. Get right to the meat of whatever matters this quarter or this year.

Are there certain ways to present data that you would avoid—some way in which the numbers you are presenting don’t make it easy to draw the right conclusions?

Yes. A lot of people show cumulative customers, for example, rather than new customers. If you ever look at a chart of cumulative customers, it's always going to be up into the right. You can present that to a board and everyone will go, "Oh great." But in reality, if you chart the number of new customers that you're adding every quarter, it may not look so good. It’s a much better way to highlight whether your customer acquisition has gone flat or is declining.

Forcing board members to draw conclusions is never great. Either they're going to come up with the wrong one, or they may feel you're not highlighting a potential problem.

What do you do to prepare the board members for what’s coming?

Too many times, people make the mistake of sending materials out the day before. And many times board members are traveling or don’t have time, and they end up reading the information at the board meeting. The last thing you want them to do is to spend the time going down a rabbit hole in the board meeting when they could have easily addressed something with you in advance.

Also, you should always be socializing anything important, that you need a key decision on in advance of the board meeting. With a budget, for example, if there's going to be a discussion, you don't want it to blow up during the board meeting. You want to know three weeks in advance that some members may be very concerned about growth and think we should be adding more fuel to the fire and hiring more sales reps. And you want to know that another board member, while they're really concerned about growth, they're also concerned about cash and are not comfortable with the level of spend you have on the sales side. Being able to flesh that out in advance so you know what the reservations are going to be, you know what the questions are going to be, and so you are prepared.

When you're working with boards, the most important thing is integrity.

Do you handle things differently if you have bad news to report, compared to good news.

If you don't have good news, it should not be a surprise. The management team should have reached out to the board in advance so they aren't blindsided. Make sure that as a management team, you have discussed that in advance and people understand what the outcomes could be. You want to have a strategy around next steps. You want a consistent voice amongst the management team, because otherwise, it really seems like you don’t have your act together.

Presenting information to the board without a plan for addressing problematic things, that’s just not a very responsible management team.

Your advice about communicating with the board early and often suggests the relationship with individual directors extends beyond the boardroom. Is that right?

I think it's essential for CFOs to build a rapport with each of their board members outside of the boardroom and outside of the boardroom context. If there’s any lesson that I would give myself over and over again, it's that one. Make the time and effort to connect with the board members who are going to be relevant to the areas that you're managing.

A lot of the time, it's really asking them at a board meeting or via email saying, "Hey, I'd really like to sync with you every month," or, "Can we set up a time to talk a week before the board meeting? I want to run some ideas by you.” And really trying to have them help be your partner around whatever issue you are facing. It's hard for them to be a partner if the first time they hear about some issue is at the board meeting.

Are there some of those relationships that have served you particularly well in your career?

I would say a couple that stand out. Early on in my career, I had a board member who had been a prior CFO and then went on to be the CEO of a large public company. He was a great advocate and a great mentor because he had walked in my shoes before.

Similarly, I had another board member that was the CFO at a different company before. I used that person as a sounding board as we were going through an M&A transaction. I was able to pick up the phone and say, "Here are some of the terms that they're thinking about. How do you think about them? How would you approach them?"

These experienced CFOs were great partners because they understood what that role looks like, and they had been in those shoes and could provide excellent guidance.

"Get right to the meat of whatever matters this quarter or this year."

What’s an example of the guidance they could provide?

We had this distinct conversation on whether we needed to add headcount to our sales team and add sales territories. Our sales productivity metrics were declining at the time. And, I was not an advocate of adding a lot of new sales territories until we really understood what was driving the decline. Were we making bad hiring decisions? Were we not training our salespeople? Was there something from our product market fit perspective that we needed to understand better? Were we not selling to the right buyer?

One of our board members kept saying, "Now's the time to grow.” Another board member who I knew really well and who came from more of a data-driven financial background would make the opposite point: "Why would we put more money right now into this until we really better understand whether we’re throwing good money after bad." He was repeating a lot of what I said. But coming from within the board, it has a different lens to it.

That must not have been the only time you encountered conflicting opinions in a board meeting. As you think about presenting to a board, what do you need to learn about points of view and even the backgrounds of your directors?

There are different types of board members. There are strategic board members that may come from industry or may come from strategic partners or that understand the business well. There are financially driven board members that could be from venture or private equity. And even within venture and private equity, there are really two different types of investors. Understanding private equity metrics is very important. They care about internal rate of return and other financial metrics because their funds are measured on those. A venture investor may have a much longer time frame and time horizon and is at the end of the day really looking at their overall return.

People tend to think finance is all about numbers. But from what you describe, there are quite a few “people” skills that you need as you think about talking to your board. Right?

When you're working with boards, the most important thing is integrity. And, integrity comes from transparency, from being reliable and consistent, from them knowing that they can come to you and understand the health of the business. It's a relationship that requires trust.

You also need to have the right communication skills to do it well. The CFO's role can sometimes be to raise things that maybe others don't want to highlight. You can do it privately because you want to make sure that everyone's on the same page or you can do it at the board meeting. You build trust when they know you're providing relevant information that's accurate and that you're going to present not just the good but also be candid about where there are areas where things could be better.

• It’s about stories, not numbers
• Avoid surprises, especially around bad news
• Always have a plan to address specific problems
• Nurture relationships with directors
• Build trust through transparency
• Twenty-year career as a finance executive
• CFO Pioneer Square Labs, a venture fund and startup studio
• Ex-CFO ExtraHop Networks, NewPath Networks, RadioFrame Networks
• Member of the board of directors at Code.org
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Practical tips on presenting to your board of directors

25 September 2022

As a business leader, you may find yourself presenting to your board of directors on a regular basis. Whether you’re delivering an update on the company’s progress, seeking approval for a new initiative, or asking for funding, your board presentation is an important opportunity to make your case and get the results you need.

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Setting up the presentation

The first step in preparing your presentation is to understand the needs and expectations of your audience. Once you know what they're hoping to get out of the meeting, you can start to put together your material.

1. Know your audience

Before you begin preparing your presentation, take the time to understand who your audience is and what they're looking for.

• What are their priorities?
• What concerns do they have?
• What information will they need to make a decision?

Keep in mind that most directors are on a tight schedule, so you'll need to be concise and to the point.

2. Make a strong opening

You only have a few minutes to make a good impression, so make sure your opening is strong and engaging. Start with a powerful statement or an interesting story that will grab their attention and give them a taste of what's to come.

3. Keep it simple

When it comes to board presentations, less is more. Focus on delivering a clear, concise message that your audience can easily understand.

4. Focus on the key points

With a limited amount of time, you'll need to be selective about what you include in your presentation. Focus on the key points that you want to get across, and make sure they're well-organized and easy to follow.

5. Get your facts straight

When you're presenting to your board, it's important to make sure that all of the information you're sharing is accurate. Make sure you've done your homework and double-checked your facts before you get in front of the group.

6 Avoid assumptions or making statements you can't back up

Be careful not to make assumptions about what your audience knows or doesn't know. And, avoid making statements that you can't back up with data or evidence. If you're not sure about something, it's better to leave it out than to risk losing credibility with your audience.

7. Use visuals wisely

Board members are busy people, so make it easy for them to digest your information by using visuals. Charts, graphs, and infographics can help to illustrate your points and make them more memorable. However, be sure to use visuals wisely – don't overload your presentation with too many, or make them so complex that they're difficult to understand.

8. Be prepared for questions

No matter how well you think you've presented your case, there's always a chance that board members will have questions. Be prepared to answer them by knowing your material inside and out. And, if you don't know the answer to a question, be honest and say so. Then, offer to follow up with the information later.

9. Practice, practice, practice

A successful presentation isn't just about the content - it's also about your delivery. Practice your presentation several times before you deliver it, so you can be confident and polished when the time comes.

During the presentation

When you are giving a presentation to your board of directors, it is important to engage them throughout. Here are some tips on how to do just that:

1. Make eye contact

Make eye contact with each member of the board during your presentation. This will help to ensure that you have their attention and that they are following along.

2. Use body language

Emphasize points you are making with your body language. Gestures and expressions can go a long way in conveying your message and keeping everyone engaged.

3. Keep your presentation interactive

Ask questions of the board members, get their input on decisions, and make sure they feel like they are part of the process.

4. Be aware of your tone

Avoid sounding monotone or like you are reading from a script. Instead, try to sound enthusiastic and passionate about your topic.

After the presentation

Once you've delivered your presentation, there are still a few things you can do to make sure it was successful. Here are some tips:

1. Follow up with any promised information

If you said you would provide additional information or data, be sure to follow through. This will show that you are reliable and that you take your commitments seriously.

2. Ask for feedback

Don't be afraid to ask the board members for their feedback on your presentation. This can help you to improve for next time and ensure that you are meeting their needs.

3. Thank them for their time

Be sure to thank the board members for their time and attention. This is a courtesy that will be appreciated, and it can help to build goodwill moving forward.

4. Follow-up on any to-do points

If there were any action items or decisions that came out of your presentation, be sure to follow up and make sure they are taken care of. This will show that you are on top of things and that you take the board's input seriously.

Things to take-away

• Presenting in front of your board can be a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be.
• Remember to practice beforehand, engage the group during the presentation, and follow up afterwards.
• With careful planning and execution, your next presentation is sure to be a success.

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Hi, I’m Lilian. I’m currently the head of a design team in a digital agency in Amsterdam and love to write about leadership and share tips based on my experience over the past couple of years.

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How to Present to Senior Executives

• Nancy Duarte

Cut to the chase. Keep their attention.

Senior executives are one of the toughest crowds you’ll face as a presenter. They’re incredibly impatient because their schedules are jam-packed — and they have to make lots of high-stakes decisions , often with little time to weigh options. So they won’t sit still for a long presentation with a big reveal at the end. They’ll just interrupt you before you finish your shtick.

• ND Nancy Duarte is a best-selling author with thirty years of CEO-ing under her belt. She’s driven her firm, Duarte, Inc., to be the global leader behind some of the most influential messages and visuals in business and culture. Duarte, Inc., is the largest design firm in Silicon Valley, as well as one of the top woman-owned businesses in the area. Nancy has written six best-selling books, four have won awards, and her new book, DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story , is available now. Follow Duarte on Twitter: @nancyduarte or LinkedIn .

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There's an Art to Presenting to Your Board of Directors

The corporate board is often described as a black box, a powerful members-only club. For some executives, however, the time will come when the club door will swing open, and they'll be ushered inside. When that day arrives for you, you want to be ready. 

An invitation to present to the board is a badge of honor, says Rich Fields, head of the board effectiveness practice at Russell Reynolds. "You don't get asked to do that if you're not kind of a big deal at the organization." 

Although the board's agenda determines who's asked to speak, the CEO, who makes the invitation, might have their own motive, too, says Jeff Wong, EY's chief innovation officer. CEOs often want to expose the board to someone worthy of a major leadership role in the future. That way, directors are familiar with the employee when the CEO floats their name at the next board meeting. And if those directors like what they see, they'll also have more confidence in the CEO's leadership. 

Moreover, engaging with the board and getting exposure may be your stepping stone to landing a future board seat. 

The stakes are admittedly high for an executive asked to present to the board, but—and this is paramount—put that aside as you prepare for your big day. The best way to hit the mark during your boardroom debut is to stay focused on your mission, and meet your audience's needs, says Lisa Edwards, executive chair of the Diligent Institute. Here's what that means and how to do it. 

Focus on the topic at hand, not every topic under your sun  

This was the No. 1 piece of advice from every board member, executive, and governance expert interviewed for this guide. When you're presenting to the board, your mission is to stay narrowly focused on the subjects that most closely align with its goals. 

Be selective even if asked to give a general update: What matters most to the board? What are the two or three takeaways you need to drive home? This isn't a data dump, nor is it about showcasing all of your deep knowledge. It's about delivering specific information. 

Turning the presentation into a show-and-tell moment is the most common error executives make when first appearing in the boardroom, says Edwards. "It's human nature that you want to show your expertise," she says. But you can do that by demonstrating you understand the board's role in the firm. "They don't want to run your business," she says. "They want to get assurances that you're on top of it." 

Hold a premeeting and ask questions

Most board presentations are meant to either: a) keep the board informed about a key area of business or b) supply data and context to help the board go deeper on a topic when a strategic decision is needed. Your job in the premeeting with whoever invited you to meet the board—usually the CEO—is to find out exactly what the board expects from you and what they already know. 

The questions to ask, according to Fields: 

• What is the key message I need to get across? 
• What actions do I need to get from the board? 
• What questions should I anticipate? 
• What has the board heard about or decided on the subject already? 

This pregame tête-à-tête also helps executives understand how much time they should spend preparing the presentation. According to Fields, practiced presenters spend 10 to 15 times the allotted presentation time on prep work. But Deborah Rubin, senior partner and head of RHR International's Board & CEO Services division, warns that senior team members often spend an outsized amount of time—days or weeks—on boardroom prep, creating unnecessary anxiety and taking the focus off of day-to-day business, when the potential return on investment may not match the effort.  

At smaller companies, executives may have preexisting relationships with board members and should feel comfortable inviting them to a coffee, says Yasmene Mumby, a leadership coach who has worked with organizations like the ACLU,  International Rescue Committee and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

"Instead of at the board meeting that's very public, and everyone is waiting for something juicy to happen, meet people where they are before the meeting, understand what they care about," she suggests. 

Make your presentation memorable 

Only once you understand the scope of your mission can you start preparing your meeting materials: a pre-read deck, slides (if you plan to use them), and the general outline for your short talk. Here's a lightning round of advice to make your material and delivery stand out: 

Keep your pre-read laser-focused

You'll be asked to submit reading for the meeting's "board book," a collection of documents that board members are expected to read and digest before arriving at a meeting. The length of your pre-read deck will vary depending on the topic and ask. However, some say limiting the pre-read to five pages is a good rule of thumb. Fields typically advises executives to create a first draft and then trim it by half. Peggy Foran, chief governance officer at Prudential and a longtime National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) faculty member, likewise argues that the pre-read has to relay tailored information in as few pages as possible. Use bullet points, she says. 

When you feel compelled to add details to flesh out your pre-read, remember that there's always an appendix. That's where full financial statements will land and you can slip in additional reading. "By the way, you'd be surprised, a lot of board members go deep into the appendix," says Jocelyn Mangan, a board member at Papa John's and CEO of Him For Her, which aims to improve gender diversity on boards. 

Don't ignore the raw data, especially when it's requested

Keeping your presentation materials short and well-structured is essential, but some board members—especially new ones or activist investors turned directors—will want to see raw data rather than a carefully curated report. If boards ask for raw data and only receive selected, packaged charts and narratives, says Rubin, they may worry that the company's leadership team lacks transparency. If you're unclear on how much detail to offer, ask the CEO or the company's corporate secretary for a sample presentation. 

Plan on sharing very few, if any, slides

While your pre-read must be carefully edited, your slide deck ought to be positively minimalist. Fields challenges executives to use one slide—to perhaps find one striking visual—to drive home a point. 

Mind your speaking-to-listening ratio  

The biggest mistake you can make in a 30-minute presentation is to prepare a 30-minute speech, warns Foran. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, speak for no more than 10 minutes and use the rest of the time to converse with the seasoned professionals in the room. Listen to the directors' insights, and take their questions.  

Avoid jargon  

If technical terms cannot be avoided, include a glossary. Your board presentation and pre-reading can include an educational component for meaty topics like data privacy or sustainability, but the "lesson" shouldn't take over. Stay out of the weeds as much as possible and offer to send follow-up material. 

Start with the conclusion.  

Time-pressed directors get impatient and frustrated with long introductions, says Fields. Instead, say, " Let me start at the end and then provide more detail." Or, "Here's the decision we need to make, and here's where we need your input." Opening with that one-line scene-setter is "profoundly obvious," Fields adds, "yet somehow not universally used." 

Do not read from a script.  

Nor should you read your slides. "What I want is the color behind it, the nuance," says Edwards. "Let's have a conversation about the possible risks or opportunities associated with what you're talking about."   

Provide context

Offering a backdrop helps board members come to their own conclusions about data, Edwards says. "So our risk score has improved. Is that good or bad? What do we look like versus the industry? What do we look like versus our named competitors in the proxy? How do we hold up overall?" 

Remember that boards aren't insiders  

"You see the business every day," says Michael Maggio, CEO of Reciprocity, a cybersecurity software company. But unlike you and the colleagues you normally present to, the board has spent maybe 30 minutes on this topic in the last 90 days. 

"If you're presenting to a board that you presented to before, give them an update," Rubin advises. "Link from where you were, what they asked for, what happened, and where you're moving forward." 

Connect to the company's mission  

"Executives should always remember that the board's fiduciary duty is long-term value creation for shareholders while taking other stakeholders into consideration," Sonita Lontoh, a director at the solar company Sunrun and the workforce management software firm TrueBlue, suggests in an email to Fortune . "As such, when executives present to the board, they should share insights as to how their topic is helping the company to better navigate material risks and opportunities for long-term value creation." 

Report the good, the bad, the unclear

Want to demonstrate your leadership skills? Be upfront about what is and isn't working in your area of business. It may take courage, but it's your job and an essential part of building trust, says EY's Wong, who regularly reports to the consulting firm's board. "The number one thing I want them to know is I'm going to tell them the truth." 

Ashley Kramer, CMSO at GitLab, says her company uses a green, yellow and red color coding system to give board members a visual guide to where initiatives stand. Most importantly, she says, tell the board how the company plans to keep the good things going and what it will do to monitor and mitigate risks and trouble spots. 

Make the experience tactile

When it makes sense, EY's Wong allows board members to play with new products or emerging technology as he delivers the presentation. "How do you make it so they can see, feel, and touch it inside their environment?" Wong says. "You don't just talk about what it is in theory. You show it to them in action." For product managers and developers, this is an opportunity to demonstrate the potential return on investing in an innovative idea or educate the board about a new development—like virtual learning or ChatGPT—that may impact the company. 

This article was written by Lila MacLellan from Fortune  and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace . Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.

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How to make a Presentation to the Board of Directors

by Edouard Gruwez – September 2019

This article is a brief guideline for anyone who prepares a presentation to the Board of Directors or to a Board Committee.

A Board of Directors is a particularly demanding audience because time pressure, information quality and unanimity are more important to them than to any other management team. A presentation to the Board should be to the point: short and complete, simple and substantiated, persuasive and factual, confident and honest.

Don’t talk like TED, be TO THE POINT.

The answer to this challenge is NOT to make a TED-like presentation. Directors and Executives are not seeking entertainment. They want to make the best possible decision in the shortest possible time, while taking all information and risks into account.

Time Squeeze. Time is money, especially in Board Meetings. Directors want to get directly to the heart of the matter. If you don’t do so, they will interrupt you from the very start. But how to make a story short if the subject is complex and information abundant?

Information Gap. Information that reaches the Board might be biased in many ways. So, they want to check. With their experience, they often ‘feel’ if something is right or not. Both checking facts and getting the right feeling, requires them to investigate details. But how can you provide details within the extreme time constraint?

Team Dynamics. Aligning such a group of intelligent, authoritative individuals with many, often conflicting, priorities is a subtle process of information, discussion and persuasion. But how do you behave as a visitor, not being familiar with these dynamics?

The answer to this challenge is a meticulous preparation:

Step 1 – Understand and focus on the essence. Step 2 – Build a concise, solid narrative. Step 3 – Create convenient and detailed documentation. Step 4 – Prepare to be your honest self.

Following pages describe the four steps in further detail.

STEP 1 – Understand and focus on the essence.

In most cases a person from the audience is at the origin of your invitation. Use your sponsor as sounding board throughout your preparation and consider talking to some Board members.

a. Make the purpose yours and stick to it.

The Board has invited you for a purpose. Make sure that this purpose is crystal clear. If it isn’t, ask your sponsor or check with the Board Secretary. What is the exact scope? Is it an item for information or decision? And if so what decision? If not done by the chair, consider reminding the audience of the purpose at the beginning of your talk.

Don’t have a hidden agenda! Stick to the purpose of your presentation. Any attempt to achieve a hidden purpose will only weaken your presentation and credibility.

b. Know who sits in the Board of Directors and understand their needs.

Ask your sponsor about the Board members, their background, their knowledge, their opinions, their formal and informal roles.

Make sure to understand what they are looking for. Boards generally watch over the long-term value and risks of the company. Understand what ‘value’ means to them: contribution to society, sustainability, well-being, or legacy can be as important as monetary value. Find out if there are specific worries. The more you can build your presentation around what really matters to them, the more you will capture their attention.

Typical Board questions are :

• Have we looked at all alternatives?

• Is the data reliable and is the methodology solid?

• Can we secure the resources?

• What are the risks?

• How does this create value in the long run?

• Is it a well-grounded strategy that fits the mission and goals?

And understand their background. Non executive board members might be less familiar with some industry-specific technicalities and acronyms. Either avoid these items or give enough background information.

Ask any CIO about that very first time presenting to the board, and you’ll hear a deep sigh of relief that it’s in the past. 

“When I worked at a publicly traded company, I referred to board presentations as my personal professional development opportunity, because I learned from each experience,” recalls Diane Schwarz, chief digital and information officer of Hunt Consolidated in Dallas. She credits her former boss with boosting her confidence for her inaugural board presentation on cybersecurity by reminding her: “You know far more about this topic than any of them.”

Yet presenting to the board is something of “role reversal” for CIOs used to spending their time meeting with their teams or interacting with peers, adds Schwarz, who served as CIO at Textron before her current role. “In the boardroom, you are presenting to a highly prestigious group of experienced executives. It’s a very structured meeting in which you participate only during your section on the agenda.”

Her advice: Join the meeting with a different mindset. “It’s not a collaboration session. You’re reporting up and out on aspects of your enterprise responsibilities.”

Here, Schwarz and other veteran execs share their best advice for boardroom success.

Know the board’s needs

When he was CIO at Kaiser Permanente, Phil Fasano made a point of teaching his team about how to present to a board. “Tech people think the board wants to hear about the great stuff they’re building, but it’s nothing to do with that,” says Fasano, who serves on several boards as CEO of Bay Advisors, a strategic advisory firm in the Washington, DC area.

Enhancing the value of the company for shareholders and customers is what the board cares about, he adds. “I would coach IT people (who like to give a precise number to a decimal point) to understand that giving a number like that is an immediate tipoff to the board that you haven’t thought through all your challenges,” Fasano notes, stressing the importance of sharing both the upsides and downsides with the board.

John Murray, a former CIO and CEO who is currently a member of two private boards, agrees that CIOs need to focus on the board’s business-focused interests. “Give me milestones to measure. Show me how what you’re doing contributes to EBTDA,” he advises, referring to Earnings Before Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.

One of the most challenging aspects of CIO-to-board communications is shearing away the complexity in your technology update without glossing over the challenges ahead. 

Murray has coached a few CIO colleagues on the importance of brevity in their board communications. “The classic (complaint) is a CIO presenting for 35-40 minutes on something that should’ve been 10. Once he leaves, everybody sighs with exasperation.” 

A far better strategy: “Deliver useful, actionable insights, packaged in a way the board can absorb,” Murray recommends. “Communicate to me about any risks I’m taking. Show me how you’re going to manage them. Then get out of the room.”

When it comes to deciding how much tech detail to share, find a balance between oversimplifying and over-complicating. “Most board members are on multiple boards, or have been CEOs and had technology reporting up to them,” Schwarz points out. “They don’t come to their meetings with zero frame of reference, so don’t discount their baseline of knowledge.”

Mind the board dynamics

Understanding the dynamics of the board itself is one area that CIOs tend to overlook in their due diligence and advance prep, says Kristen Lamoreaux, president of Lamoreaux Search near Philadelphia. “You really have to lean on your CEO and CFO to understand the dynamics of the board,” she explains. “Find out ahead of time who will ask in-depth questions or who might derail you on a financial question.”

Most CIOs get the importance of backgrounding the board members as part of their board prep, Lamoreaux adds, but few consider the maturity of the board’s working relationships. “Have they been together for five years? Are there any new members? What are the politics of the room?”

Even a detail as minor as which board members may have skipped over their assigned reading before the meeting can help a CIO prepare for surprise questions. “Unless you’ve been warned, you’ll go in there believing they’ve all read the details in the board book,” she says.   

Earn their trust

“Board members generally peppered me with questions throughout a presentation,” recalls Hunt Consolidated’s Schwarz, who noticed that the nature of their queries often repeated each year. “I started noting the questions after each presentation and reviewed them as part of the prep work for upcoming board sessions.”

When Kevin Barnes was serving as CIO of E&J Gallo Wineries in 2014 and preparing for his first board meeting, he noticed one of the new board members had been the chief financial officer at another California company where Barnes knew the CIO well.

“I called up (that CIO) and did a little social engineering and networking,” he recalls. That led to an informal overview of Gallo’s IT strategy with the board member, who asked “good, tough questions” that gave Barnes a head’s up on topics he should be ready to address in the meeting.

Gaining the confidence and trust of your board members isn’t just about information sharing, however. Schwarz used what she jokingly calls her “Help Desk 101” strategy to encourage tech conversations beyond the boardroom. “As senior technologists, we should always be ready to help whomever needs it,” the CDO says. “I fixed one board member’s phone during an elevator ride. It took me about 10 seconds — and she was so appreciative.”

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Presenting to the Board of Directors: What to say and how to say it

When someone asks, “what did you do over the weekend?” they don’t really expect you to give them every single detail. You’d tell them anything interesting, funny, or out of the ordinary, or if nothing much happened, you’d just say, “the usual.” For financial institutions awash in a sea of regulations, compliance issues are part of what you deal with day in and day out. So when it comes time to present to the Board of Directors, deciding which issues to present and how to present them is a bit tricky. Do you give them every single compliance detail, or do you give them just a broad, basic overview (“Everything’s great!”)? There’s a delicate balance between not wanting to alarm the board while making sure the board is aware of the need to devote sufficient resources to address potential compliance concerns.

More specifically the questions financial institutions should ask are: What level of concerns should be brought to the board’s attention and what can be handled at a management level? And if an issue does merit presentation to the board, how can you present the information in a way that helps the board appreciate your institution’s compliance risks and decisions?

Telling the Board

The quick answer to the first question is that you should definitely tell the board about compliance issues that are likely to receive regulatory attention before your regulator does. A system of regularly identifying and addressing compliance deficiencies necessitates acknowledging them early on in the process. The list of enforcement actions is filled with violations that started out as small items or aberrations that were not appropriately acknowledged and addressed, leaving them to grow to become costly issues. That said, many issues can be handled on a management level and don’t require board attention.

In determining which issues rise to the level of board attention and which don’t, it becomes a matter of assessing the degree of the potential concern. One way to do so is to assign identified issues to one of three levels of potential violations:

• Level 3/High Severity: Potential issues that may result in significant negative consequences to consumers or members or that have a basis, pattern, or practice of discrimination issues, including redlining or discouragement. These concerns, if proven, typically result in a request or a requirement for restitution in excess of a given dollar amount (for example, $10,000 in aggregate).
• Level 2/Medium Severity: Potential issues that may reflect systemic or chronic issues. If proven, they represent a failure of the bank/credit union to meet the requirements of part or all of a regulation or statute. These concerns, if validated, may prove to have had a small negative impact on consumers/members or have the potential to do so if uncorrected. These issues may result restitution in an amount below that of Level 3.
• Level 1/Low Severity: Potential issues that are likely isolated or sporadic, or systemic concerns that are of such marginal negativity that they are unlikely to affect consumers/members. These concerns are typically due to individual failures to follow established procedures or minor errors in the implementation of procedures to meet obligations of a regulation or statute.

Informing the Board of Level 3 concerns is, of course, vital, as are most Level 2 concerns. Conversely, Level 1/Low Severity potential concerns are likely unnecessary to have a material impact on the financial institution. While these may not require board attention, these concerns, if proven, should nonetheless trigger appropriate response efforts and post-action notification, and would likely be presented to a committee rather than the board (i.e., Supervisory, Compliance, Audit, etc.).

Helping the Board Appreciate Compliance Risks

After identifying the level of risk posed by the potential issue, you may then determine that presentation to the Board is advisable. This is when a compliance officer faces the second portion of the balancing act: How can I help my Board understand, or at least appreciate, our compliance risks or our current compliance situation in a way that doesn’t unnecessarily sound the alarm, but helps ensure that the institution is devoting adequate resources to address the issue?

As with most misunderstandings, a common pitfall here is a lack of context. When it comes to a Board’s understanding of its institution’s compliance risks, it is worthwhile to take the time to provide context and trend. It is easy to say, for example, that your institution’s Fair Lending is experiencing a rising risk as is the industry in general, but what is the direction of risk relative to your institution, its products, services, personnel, regulatory factors, etc.? Presenting this context cannot be overstated in importance if you wish the Board to understand the reasons for decisions and actions taken to mitigate risks.

To illustrate, one financial institution recently made the decision to disconnect the CIP/CDD/EDD module of its AML System, because, after much thought, it considered it to be a duplication of effort. Did the Board understand and accept the aggregate risk created by the decision? In cases presented void of context, this is unlikely.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts to the contrary, the full appreciation for an “uncontexted” decision isn’t realized until it’s too late, if at all. The institution then experiences an imbalance between the Board and the decision. At that point the Board might ask the question: Did the Chief Risk Officer or the Compliance Officer do his or her job? However, by appropriately filtering those concerns that merit presentation to the Board and by providing appropriate and adequate context to help the Board understand risks and decisions, it is far more likely that your Board presentations will achieve that perfect balance.

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How to Present Marketing to Your Board of Directors

Marketing VPs and even CMOs often get left out of board meetings. If you are invited to present your marketing strategy to an experienced and inquisitive board of directors, take it as more than an opportunity for your big close-up: rather, this is your chance to show how your marketing contributes to overall company strategy and to get more resources sooner.

Here are some simple tips you can follow to make your presentation meaningful and impactful:

First, know your audience. Boards of directors are mostly focused on strategy, operations and finance, and almost always members are NOT marketers. There are a lot of reasons why this is, but it means you need to focus on information that impacts strategic decision making. And the bigger the company, the more likely this information is financial: revenues, acquisition costs, and such.

Tell a story. Reading off a list of stats is a waste of everybody’s time: you may might as well email your Powerpoint and skip the meeting. Summarize a few big ideas. If you must have a table of facts, interpret them. Explain whether things are good or bad, and tell a story about what you learned for the future. Sure, have the data ready, but keep it for backup.

Focus on results, not past actions.  Every major marketing initiative should have had a measurable result, whether in terms of revenue, profit, growth rate, or market share. These high-level results are what the board wants to know about. Focus on what you achieved and learned, not just the things you did.

Focus on future strategy, not just planned tactics.  Explain not just what’s happening next but WHY you’re doing it. Say, “we are investing in X, because it will do Y.” Quantify your expectations with measurable outcomes.

Focus on profits, not just leads.  Boards love profits. Explain what it’s going to take for you show profits, and how marketing contributes. How are you going to improve unit economics to make the company earnings positive?

Focus on growth opportunities, not just a single plan.  Provide a range of investment options that you expect will produce the most growth. Each quarter, list all the $1 million initiatives that would make the biggest difference, and quantify the expected impact. Remember, you can’t cut to greatness, and boards don’t want to cut – they just want to make sure money is well spent relative to other opportunities.

Engage the board . Smart boards remember your past presentations, or at least, have a junior staffer summarize them. If you changed strategy, acknowledge that you did so and why. Wow them with your presentation. Finally, board members want to help you be successful. Give board members an opportunity for feedback, and a menu of options. Show them the top 3 things you can do to accelerate growth, and let them choose. Make them feel they should give you another $1 million today.

By focusing on the future, you can get out of the marketing trenches – at least for a day – and demonstrate your essential contributions to the company.

A tip of the hat to Gayle Crowell  of Warburg Pincus for contributing many ideas here.

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Compliance Best Practices: Presenting to a Board of Directors

Best practices to help you dazzle during your next compliance presentation to the board of directors.

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Some executives we talk to find giving a compliance presentation to the board of directors a nerve-racking experience, while others seem to take it in stride. Whether you like your time on center stage or prefer it be over with as fast as possible, these 10 guidelines will help you to present data in a way that does more than just satisfy board members’ fiduciary responsibility about risk mitigation. They will allow you to illustrate how compliance can be a vital part of a vibrant, forward-looking growth strategy.

Best Practices When Giving a Compliance Presentation to the Board of Directors

1. do organize your data and put it in context.

During your board of directors presentation, let them know you’re on top of the data, and using it to drive forward-looking policies that help the company become better at what it does. Your primary aim should be to tell a compelling story that’s reinforced with data—not to present every metric that you’ve measured over the last quarter. Pare down the information into clear and concise summaries, such as how many hotline calls you’ve had, how many have been resolved, or where and why you’ve launched new policies. Be sure to highlight trends, hot spots, or areas of significant change—and include context that can help demonstrate the “why” behind the numbers.

2. DO have a message

While it is important to deliver a key set of metrics in each report, it’s also important to paint a picture for the board with your data. This demonstrates you understand how to steer compliance, not just manage it.

Questions to ask yourself: What is it you’re trying to say? Do you need to report on bad news, and what’s being done about it? Are you reporting on little news, which should be a cause for demonstrating your effectiveness?

No matter what you’re reporting, find the story that’s in the data. Perhaps you’re making a point for more compliance investment – where does the data support that the investment would have a strong return?

3. DO use clear and simple visuals

You may love spreadsheets and PowerPoints, but they can be boring ways to present information if not carefully considered. If you present slides with too much too much text and too many numbers, charts, and tables, the board will tune out and merely passively receive your information. You want them to be actively consuming it, so that they are inspired by what you’re saying.

If you have an administrative assistant prepare your materials, be sure to give the presentation an executive touch – streamline and cut anything that’s not necessary for the board. You can explain what they’re seeing, so that you don’t have to put everything into your visuals.

4. DO be brief

Compliance is your field, not theirs. While you can prepare a longer talk, save some details for the Q&A, when you can dive deeper into the topics that interest your board to demonstrate your depth of knowledge. (Want to anticipate some of the questions they may have? Download our guide to the most frequently asked questions during compliance presentations to the board of directors).

5. DO report the warts

Don’t omit or downplay problem areas. To exercise effective oversight, the board should be aware of all significant risks, incidents, and missteps. These happen in every company, no matter how effective compliance is—and your board knows that. They will get suspicious if their executive in charge of risk tells them that there is no risk.

After sharing the bad news, provide a solution that has a corrective action plan, and engage the board in dialogue about their thoughts. Since some board members reside on multiple boards, they may have already seen something similar and have good suggestions or feedback for your corrective initiative.

5 Don’ts When Giving a Compliance Presentation to the Board of Directors

1. don’t live in a vacuum.

Provide a frame of reference for the board by leveraging benchmarking data, including industry averages, current best practices, and your own company’s past successes. Benchmarking is one of the easiest and clearest ways to show that you’re on top of your job, and put your results in context.

If you don’t currently benchmark, it’s a good time to make the case for why you should: Make it clear that regulators and enforcement agencies will compare your company to others in the industry if you do come under investigation. Communicate that benchmarking should be a standard practice, and will provide valuable fodder for future discussion on program results, progress, and resourcing.

2. DON’T pretend to know it all

It’s okay to say, “I don’t know.”

Admitting that you’re not sure of an answer to a question—even during a moment as important as your quarterly compliance presentation to the board—is preferable to taking a wild guess or meandering around your mind for a vague answer. If someone asks you a good question you don’t know the answer to, let them know it’s an excellent question, that you’ll find the answer to it, and that you’ll report back to them about it. Then do exactly that.

You can’t and shouldn’t know the answers to all the questions you might be asked . Being prepared for what you don’t know is part of being well prepared.

3. DON’T wing it

Speech trainers always have their clients practice speaking. If you prepare mentally, but haven’t actually talked through your presentation, you could be setting yourself up for disaster.

Plan your talk, and then give the talk to your empty office. Or your spouse. Or dog. Time it. You can even record it if you’d like, to see how you sound and appear. This can be almost as nerve-wracking as an actual presentation, but the preparation and the self-knowledge will go a long way to helping you appear capable and confident.

4. DON’T  confuse professional with boring

It should go without saying that a compliance presentation to the board–even one you know well–should be done professionally. Appropriate dress, careful language, and engaging conversations that avoid getting too personal are all expected.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t bring a sense of humor or a little personal flair into your board of directors presentation. The board doesn’t want a stiff, too-polished report. Be prepared enough to present your data and conclusions in a conversational way that is friendly and accessible, not stiff and corporate.

You’re not presenting to a judge, but to colleagues—so finding that sweet spot between professional and conversational can make the data you’re presenting more memorable and bring your presentation to life.

5. DON’T  cut time from Q&A

Your board will—and should—have questions, so leave them time to ask them. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate your acumen and effectiveness while engaging in a more interactive forum.

Check out our list of 45 frequently asked questions during compliance presentations to the board . Prepare responses to those questions, and be able to drill down into any irregularities, trends, or key incidents to communicate what’s happening.

Make sure you’re up to speed on current events–up to the day of your presentation. Consider if any of them might impact your company and, if so, what you’re considering to stay out ahead of the issue, and out of the headlines.

45 FAQs during compliance presentations to the Board of Directors

Be as prepared as possible and anticipate the questions you’re likely to receive using our free eBook, 45 Questions Your Board Will Ask About Your Compliance Program.

Download the eBook

Related resources.

Private: Board of Director FAQs

Download eBook

The Board’s Perspective: What Can’t be Measured, Can’t be Managed

Private: How to Tell your Board of Directors an Effective Compliance Story

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Ideas Made to Matter

Presenting about data to your board: 6 tips from experts

Dylan Walsh

Sep 6, 2022

A strong data strategy is essential to be competitive. Companies refer to data nearly 80% more often in annual reports than they did in 2017, according to a recent report . And roughly half of companies surveyed had hired a chief data officer in the last two years — someone at the C-Suite level or just below who is responsible for the company’s strategic approach to data.

“Data is increasingly an asset that has both value and risk,” said Maria Villar, head of enterprise data strategy and transformation at German software company SAP.  Given the rapidly growing strategic importance of data, it is critical that CDOs not only do their job well but communicate effectively about their work. “Having an effective data strategy and then communicating it to important constituents, like your executive board, is a key to success,” Villar said.

At the recent MIT Chief Data Officer and Information Quality symposium , Villar moderated a panel featuring Ellen Nielsen, CDO at Chevron, and Denise Letcher, executive vice president and CDO at PNC Bank, discussing ways to craft a presentation about data strategy. The panelists stressed preparing early, catering data presentations to reach different audiences, and the importance of connecting to key business goals and telling compelling stories.

While the discussion focused on communication with boards, the key takeaways pertain to any set of important stakeholders.

Be prepared

Start early, said Letcher, who begins work on her annual business updates two months in advance. She begins by reviewing past presentations; Letcher has been PNC’s chief data officer for nearly seven years. “I have themes that I know the board likes to hear about,” she said. “I want to make sure I carry those forward.”

She also works closely with other teams to refine different dimensions of the presentation. Her boss provides “invaluable feedback” on the high-level topics; her managers review the content; the communications team helps her create a strong executive-level presentation.

Beyond the specific content of one’s own presentation, Nielsen pointed out the value of knowing where she fits during the meeting. Who is scheduled to present before and after? What might be the general mood of the meeting based on the topics under discussion?

“Typically, there are certain people who are preparing the content on the agenda, and they know very well what’s going on that day,” Nielsen said. She suggested finding this person and getting as much information as you can — it’s good to know what’s on the mind of the board members as you go in to talk.

CDOs must also stay abreast of salient issues beyond the company’s borders: How does data management fit with potential changes on the horizon? Letcher noted that board members, who tend to be active news consumers, often inquire about how CDOs are using their role to respond to industry shifts. Letcher, for instance, is keenly attuned to the overlap between her role and upcoming climate regulation.

Finally — it almost goes without saying — “practice, practice, practice,” Letcher said. Run through the presentation alone; test it on select groups for feedback. Be sure you have confidence in both your prepared remarks and your ability to answer questions.

Tell stories with broad relevance

It is important to connect the work of data and analytics to larger business objectives, Letcher and Nielsen said. Audiences like a board of directors are typically not interested in the details of specific projects or processes, and they don’t need to know what a CDO has been doing day-to-day or month-to-month. Rather, they care about outcomes — how the application of data and analytics is advancing business objectives.

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“You want to step back and say, ‘How is data helping the overall company?’” Letcher said. If one slice of data proved essential to a recent merger and acquisition, for instance, then tell that story and clarify the value that is generated by good data. You want to explain how data is enabling the business strategy, she said.

As the audience for these presentations moves deeper into the organization — from the board, to leadership, to lower managers — the need for detail increases. The outcomes also grow more specific: from top-level business strategy to how data and analytics are supporting a particular unit or function. Budgetary questions and financial details become more relevant.

Competitiveness is another important topic of discussion, Nielsen said. When describing the strategic role of data within your company, benchmark these descriptions against competitors. What are you doing better? In what ways do you need to catch up? When describing areas for improvement, be sure to outline the most effective levers of investment.

Regardless of audience, Nielsen and Letcher highlighted the importance of stories and anecdotes. “I put a lot of effort in [finding] the right stories to share,” Nielsen said. “I look for stories that tell about new things, or where the organization tried something new and really overcame an obstacle and created tremendous value. These are the best.”

Don't forget the finer points

Alongside big picture issues of how to prepare for and organize a presentation, Nielsen and Letcher provided tips on the fundamentals, from how to frame the conversation to how many slides to create.

• Be explicit about why you’re there. If you’re there to provide an update, say that. If you’re there to ask for approval, say that. Nielsen suggested that if you’re there for an “ask,” give the board options rather than asking for a single outcome.
• Assume 10 to 20 minutes for the key messages. This means on the order of 6 – 8 slides. Present an executive summary with the main points first. And, whatever you do, don’t read from the slides. That’s “the kiss of death,” Letcher said.
• Prepare for questions . Think about the questions you may get in advance. Have dates in mind so that you can speak to chronology. Don’t be afraid to ask for more time if you don’t have an answer: “I’ll get back to you,” is a perfectly fair response.
• Don’t use acronyms. If you absolutely need to use one, define it first.

It’s also important to remain confident — even if people come and go or appear distracted. “Recognize that you are the subject matter expert,” Letcher said. “They rely on you.”

Read next: The next chapter in analytics is data storytelling

Which Reports do Directors want in a Board Presentation?

Scott Orn leverages his extensive venture capital experience from Lighthouse Capital and Hambrecht & Quist. With a track record of over 100 investments ranging from seed to Series A and beyond in startups, including notable deals with Angie’s List and Impossible Foods, Scott brings invaluable insights into financing strategies for emerging companies. His strategic role in scaling Kruze Consulting across major U.S. startup hubs underscores his expertise in guiding startups through complex financial landscapes.

Making reports to your startup’s board of directors is a fundamental part of a CEO/founder’s duties Communicating regularly with the board helps you maintain transparency, and lets you take advantage of the board’s contacts and experience. So let’s look at what you should include in a board report.

How Often Should You Have Board Meetings?

First things first, you need to consider the frequency of your board meetings .

In general, you should have board meetings about every two months, in person. Sometimes companies will have them every six weeks and sometimes it’s every quarter. The bottom line is, it is really important to hold them on a regular basis so that you are in touch with your board and they can then help you when you need them.

Let the Board Help You

A lot of people find board meetings intimidating and expect the board to scrutinize them. They may also find board meetings to be time-consuming. While both of these things may be true, if the board doesn’t know what’s going on in the company, then they can’t help you if you’re facing issues.

Get the deck done early - and talk with board members before the meeting

Your board members will give you the best advice and perspectives if you’ve given them time to prepare for the board meeting. You can accomplish this in three important ways:

• Getting the board deck distributed early
• Meeting with directors prior to the board meeting
• Sharing news (especially bad news) as soon as practical, not just at the board meeting

Three ways to get the most out of your startup’s board meeting

1. Distributing the Board Deck Early

Distributing the board deck early - ideally at least a week before the meeting, at worst a couple of days before - is crucial. It allows board members to review the materials at their own pace, prepare questions or suggestions, and fully engage during the board meeting. If you are sharing a number of KPIs, getting the materials early lets the directors think about the numbers and how they compare to other investments, or how they compare to prior estimates or results. And it gives them a chance to ask their partners for advice. 

Additionally, an early-distributed board deck helps establish an atmosphere of transparency and good governance. By getting the materials out early, you are demonstrating respect for the board members’ time and their role as strategic advisors, which can lead to a more collaborative and effective board dynamic. Even more importantly, you are proving that you know how to execute. 

2. Meeting with Directors Prior to the Board Meeting:

One-on-one meetings with board members prior to the board meeting can significantly enhance the quality of board discussions and decisions. These meetings serve multiple purposes:

Pre-discussions : Discuss key issues and decisions that will come up during the board meeting. This ensures that board members are not surprised or caught off-guard during the actual meeting.

Get opinions : Gain feedback on strategic plans and proposals. Board members’ diverse experiences can provide unique insights and suggestions that you might not have considered. More importantly, it prepares you for how the group is going to decide or vote on important topics. For example, if two directors have different opinions on a strategic investment, you want to know that head of the meeting! It’s an early warning system for disagreements. Or, if a director is negative or against something the management team wants to do, it’s best to surface this ahead of time in a one on one conversation so you aren’t blindsided at the meeting.

Getting consensus . One of the VCs I used to work with would say that decisions shouldn’t be made at the meeting, they should simply be confirmed. Meeting ahead of time lets the CEO gain consensus and get the directors and investors to pre-agree to the most important decisions.

Relationship Building : Strengthen relationships and build trust. The more comfortable board members are with you, the more open and constructive they will be during board meetings. Given that follow on rounds are getting harder to raise, it is incredibly important to build solid relationships with your existing investors. You may need them to bridge finance your startup, so do everything you can to get them on your team.

Managing politics : Like it or not, board meetings can sometimes involve politics. Meeting individually with board members allows founders to manage potential conflicts or issues before they become disruptive in the full board meeting.

Education : Startups are often in new, rapidly evolving industries. Individual meetings can be a chance to educate board members on these changes, ensuring they are well-informed and able to provide relevant strategic guidance. Like it or not, many VCs are a bit too proud, and don’t want to look like they don’t know something in a meeting with their peers from other funds. So if you have an investor who can use some help getting up to speed on your industry, meeting ahead of time prior to the BOD gatherings can really hep that investor add-value to the startup, and can make them appreciate your leadership style. 

If there is nothing serious happening, especially if you have worked with the directors for a while, you may be able to get by with a simple email exchange instead of a phone call. But even if there is nothing important, show the courtesy of asking the directors to chat with you prior to meeting so they can share anything is a great idea. 

3. Sharing News (Especially Bad News) As Soon as Practical:

Keeping board members updated on important developments, especially negative ones, is a fundamental aspect of board management. Surprising the board with bad news during a board meeting can erode trust and lead to reactive, ill-considered decisions.

Sharing bad news as soon as practical allows board members to digest the information and provide thoughtful, strategic advice rather than hasty reactions. It also signals that you respect their role as key stakeholders, and you trust them to handle difficult situations, which can further strengthen your relationship with them.

In essence, effective board management hinges on preparation, communication, managing expectations, and respect. By implementing these three steps, you’ll set the stage for productive and impactful board meetings, fostering a board dynamic that can provide significant value to your startup’s success.

What to Include in the Board Deck

One of the best ways of letting the board of directors know what is happening in the company is to give them the proper financial reports in the board deck.

1.      Financial Reports

Remember, members of your board could be on 10, maybe even 15, other boards, which means they are constantly going to board meetings and talking to portfolio companies. You should send the slides to directors one or two days before the meeting.   

On the first or second page of your board deck we recommend having a financial status page that displays a group of very simple metrics. You can review key metrics for SaaS companies here . These allow the board to orient themselves at the start of the meeting.about what’s happening with the company and how they can help.

In this initial financial report we suggest including the following:

• Cash balance – this will  immediately tell the board what is going on in the company and how much cash you have.
• Average three months of  burn rate – they will divide the cash by the burn rate to get the months of runway outstanding.
• Your total cash  runway – how many months of cash you have.
• MRR – monthly recurring revenue.
• ARR – annual recurring revenue.
• Bookings – these are contracts you’ve closed recently and whether it was a monthly or a quarterly bookings rate.

Laying out these basics in a clear table will give a clear indicator of your startup’s current financial situation. This could be that you’re in a crisis with six months of cash and a check needs to be written ASAP, or that you have 18 months of cash and so strategy and operating metrics can be focused on without needing a check.

This is another reason why it is important to present these metrics early in the presentation because this way you can reassure the board if there isn’t a crisis. It will allow them to think more strategically, improve the discussion, and enable them able to help you more effectively.

Otherwise, they are going to be trying to figure out where you are with your cash, your runway, and how many months you have. You’ll see them flipping through the presentation, looking for them, if you don’t have them in one of the first few pages. So put the financials up front, because time in a board meeting is precious.

2.      Income Statement, Balance Sheet,  and Cash Flow Statement

So, what comes after the first pages with those simplified metrics? Well, you will definitely want to have:

• Income statement
• Balance sheet
• Cash flow statement (potentially)

Firstly, depending on how far along and how complicated the business is, you may put the income statement and balance sheet on one page. You might have a couple of high-level call outs explaining any variance or growth in expenses, but hopefully those will be saying how great your sales team and show the revenue going up. This slide is a very baseline thing, and they just want to see it there.

The cash flow statement can be a little bit farther back, typically in the finance portion of the presentation. Sometimes you’ll have your CFO or VP of finance walk through this, or you’ll have the founder or  CEO do it.

The cash flow statement is also helpful because the board can look at it and see if there are any big CapEx going on or things like that. They will also check your math on your burn rate and cash on the balance sheet.

3.      In-Depth Operational Metrics

This brings us to the third set of reports you want to include in your board deck. These are a lot of in-depth operational metrics – often KPIs for the executive team – which are all aggregated.

We highly recommend that you have some type of appendix in this finance section, to help organize the different reports and their respective KPIs, for the board. What happens, more often than not, is you will have members of the management team, or the CEO, who will present these metrics in the flow of the presentation as they go through the functional groups.

For example, you will have the marketing portion of the presentation where the marketing VP will present metrics such as lead volume, customer acquisition cost, and things like that. And you should definitely let that marketing VP own those metrics and convey what is happening from their standpoint. Essentially, you want each portion to be presented by the VP responsible for that area.

Who Should Present What?

Let’s look at who should be presenting each of the following reports that should be included in the board deck. As we just mentioned, commentary from the VP of each individual area is really valuable for the board of directors.

Customer retention. The VP of customer success is most likely going to own the churn rate, and you want them to present this metric. That demonstrates ownership, and a good VP is going to talk about their metrics, own them, talk about how they’re improving, and illustrate that with historical data. 

Sales. Another good example of the functional expert presenting their KPIs is the sales VP. The sales VP is going to present the number of customers, the average selling price, and any upsell metrics they can provide. That is the bread and butter of the sales portion of the presentation, so let them do that.

Customer lifetime value (CLV). The lifetime value of a customer could be owned by your marketing VP, the sales VP,  or even the finance team, because they’re able to see the revenue generated by a client. They also look at retention and can aggregate this and create the lifetime value of a customer. This is one of the most important metrics a startup is ever going to present to the board of directors. If that lifetime value of the customer is really high, nothing gets a VC’s checkbook out quite like it.

Hiring. Hiring will be owned by either the CEO, or the finance VP or CFO, because each of the functional groups are going to make their own hiring decisions and roll it up into finance.  So you will often see hiring presented in conjunction with the income statement and the balance sheet portion of the board deck. Otherwise you may see a breakout of hiring expectations. There are two main reasons for this:

• There will probably be some excitement in the functional groups, where they will be talking about how the marketing person is hiring a lead gen specialist, for example, or the sales person is considering hiring a director of sales and maybe two more inside sales reps. All of which is going to roll up into finance, and the  burn rate at a startup is mostly influenced by people and by salaries. About 70 to 75% of all expenses at a startup are salaries and benefits, so this will bring up questions within the board. 
• When the VCs see the expenses are projected to go up, or they see your expenses in the last six months going up, they will immediately start talking about hiring and whether or not it was a good investment. They will want to know what return on investment you’re getting from those people and what you have planned for the future.

This is why we recommend that you have the finance person or CEO present hiring information  immediately after the income statement/balance sheet portion of the board deck, in order to pre-empt board and  VC questions.

Early-stage company board meetings

Often, in early-stage companies, the CEO will be presenting all of these reports, but it is still important to have them presented in those functional groups. The CEO will need to answer questions regarding each report in an organized format, such as discussing the startups marketing, what is coming from it, what the new programs are, how much it is costing, marketing performance and the customer acquisition cost. All these topics that need to be grouped in order to make sense and create clarity for the board.

Key Points to Remember

When you’re thinking about your board report, key things to remember are:

• Board meetings are not just for the board. They are also for the executive team and the CEO to get organized, stay focused and really hone in on what is moving the company forward and the key priorities to build on.
• We recommend holding board meetings every two months, maybe quarterly, as it is a really powerful exercise for the entire company.
• You should definitely aggregate all of the different KPIs into an appendix or contents so the board can follow the meeting and look back on it later.
• You should also send the board deck out one or two days before the meeting, so directors can review it. This makes their job easier and means they’re not flipping through the slides constantly.
• Consider who presents what, since individual VP input is really valuable.

Overall, presenting these metrics is really helpful. It will make you a more disciplined and better-managed company. If you have any questions on reports, startup accounting, startup bookkeeping, taxes, or venture capital please contact us .

You can also follow our  youtube channel and our  blog for information about accounting, finance, HR, and tax for startups!

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An Olympics Scene Draws Scorn. Did It Really Parody ‘The Last Supper’?

Some church leaders and politicians have condemned the performance from the opening ceremony for mocking Christianity. Art historians are divided.

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By Yan Zhuang

A performance during the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony on Friday has drawn criticism from church leaders and conservative politicians for a perceived likeness to Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of a biblical scene in “The Last Supper,” with some calling it a “mockery” of Christianity.

The event’s planners and organizers have denied that the sequence was inspired by “The Last Supper,” or that it intended to mock or offend.

In the performance broadcast during the ceremony, a woman wearing a silver, halo-like headdress stood at the center of a long table, with drag queens posing on either side of her. Later, at the same table, a giant cloche lifted, revealing a man, nearly naked and painted blue, on a dinner plate surrounded by fruit. He broke into a song as, behind him, the drag queens danced.

The tableaux drew condemnation among people who saw the images as a parody of “The Last Supper,” the New Testament scene depicted in da Vinci’s painting by the same name. The French Bishops’ Conference, which represents the country’s Catholic bishops, said in a statement that the opening ceremony included “scenes of mockery and derision of Christianity,” and an influential American Catholic, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota, called it a “gross mockery.”

The performance at the opening ceremony, which took place on and along the Seine on Friday, also prompted a Mississippi-based telecommunications provider, C Spire, to announce that it would pull its advertisements from Olympics broadcasts. Speaker Mike Johnson described the scene as “shocking and insulting to Christian people.”

The opening ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, said at the Games’ daily news conference on Saturday that the event was not meant to “be subversive, or shock people, or mock people.” On Sunday, Anne Descamps, the Paris 2024 spokeswoman, said at the daily news conference, “If people have taken any offense, we are, of course, really, really sorry.”

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