The Savvy Director Blog

The value you bring to the boardroom is what matters.

You’re in the boardroom for a reason. It's not enough to simply show up. Putting your skills and attributes to work will enable you to make a positive impact on your board.

Knowing how and where you can add value helps you be the most effective director you can be. It gives you the confidence to engage actively with your peers around the board table (or on the computer screen).

“The board is a special group of people. People...

Much has been written and discussed about purpose since May 2021, when we posted our Savvy Director blog, The Purpose-Led Board. One of the key points for boards and their management teams was a siren call to collaborate toward a common understanding of the purpose — the ‘why’ — that guides the mission, vision, and values supporting their work.

When organizations are formed, there’s usually a clear purpose in mind. It’s often described as the reason why a...

We say it all the time – ‘Preparation is the key to success in the boardroom.’ That’s why we call our company DirectorPrep. That’s why our tagline is ‘Ready for your board meeting?’

And that’s why we developed the PREP Framework that provides individual directors with a consistent, repeatable process to prepare for board meetings. We want to support directors to be ready for their board meeting every time. (Visit the PREP for Success page on...

In our last Savvy Director blog, we explored how a director may incur personal liability because of their board service. Practicing due diligence is all well and good, but a director’s actions or inactions may still expose them to litigation and penalties. That’s why companies provide their directors with protection through indemnification.

Well-crafted Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance provides an additional line of defense. As a director, it’s a good idea not...

When you join a board of directors, and throughout your service on the board, you probably won’t give much thought to the personal financial risk you’ve taken on. And yet, a past board decision could come back to haunt you.

In general, the legal structure of a corporation provides you with protection from personal liability. But that protection is limited. There are instances where directors are held personally liable for a company’s violations of laws or regulations. The...

Your success as a board director isn’t about how smart you are, it’s about your willingness to do the work. I’m calling it ‘Boardroom Grit’. Is there such a thing?

Think about the wealthy dude who gets a seat at the high profile charity board table because of the size of his family’s foundation and the potential for a sizeable gift someday … how gritty is that when he never opens the meeting materials and confirms that reality with his...

Here’s a recent email from a DirectorPrep member: “I am serving on a board that does not have much understanding of risk management. What suggestions would you have to get the discussion going?”

That’s a great question from a risk instigator – a board director who’s looking to find a way to push their risk management rock up a hill when their fellow directors don’t see much value in having the discussion.

That’s okay. It won’t be the...

For the modern board director, using AI to help prepare for board meetings allows you to do two things at once.

First, you’ll increase your comfort level with generative AI. Experts advise board directors to increase their awareness and knowledge of AI. One way to start is to get hands-on with an AI tool that suits your own purposes.

Second, you can turbo charge your meeting PREP, making the whole process faster, easier, and more robust.

Ready for Your Board Meeting?

Modern...

I like the metaphor of “getting in gear” to refer to the topic of board engagement. It’s a familiar phrase that means “starting to deal with something in an effective way.” When a board of directors gets in gear, it starts to deal with the issues and concerns in front of it in an effective way. In other words, it makes an impact. 

To stretch the metaphor just a bit further, let’s think of individual directors as the gears. When directors are...