April 25, 2008
The Closed Session of a Board Meeting
At the end of every board meeting I’m a part of we have a closed session. This is a session that includes only the board members. All of the boards ...
October 29, 2007
Jack Welch on Lousy Directors
Jack and Suzy Welch have a great article in this week’s BusinessWeek titled Directors Who Don’t Deliver. I’ve served on many boards and written plenty of board of directors, including ...
May 7, 2007
Talking to Directors
On Saturday, I called a director at a company I’m on the board of to get a reality check on something that is going on. Ten minutes on the phone ...
April 6, 2007
Communicating Sales Info To Your Board
My partner Chris Wand is finally blogging (even though he’ll deny it) over at AsktheVC – he’s writing a series on what should be in a “board reporting package.” My long-time ...
February 3, 2007
Metrics for An Enterprise Software Company
Paul Kedrosky has a superb post up today titled Building the Perfect Board Package. The entire post is worth a slow and careful read as it’s “guidance on the subject from ...
December 4, 2006
Recruiting a New Director
In the life of most companies with an active board of directors, it occasionally becomes necessary to recruit a new director. In the case of VC backed companies, a new ...
December 3, 2006
A CEO’s View of Board Meetings
Will Herman has an excellent post up titled Board Meetings – A CEO’s Point of View. While I’ve never been on a board where Will was CEO, he and I have ...
October 24, 2006
Sample Board Meeting Minutes
I go to a lot of board meetings. As a result, I’ve reviewed a lot of board meeting minutes. In general, the philosophy among most VC-backed companies – promulgated by ...
October 16, 2006
Board Meeting Rules
Following are some board meeting rules that were recently presented to me and my fellow board members by a CEO at one of his first board meetings at a newly funded early stage ...
October 13, 2006
The First Board Meeting
Scott Converse – the CEO of ClickCaster – has a long and very personal post about his experience in the run up to his first board meeting. I’m sure he’ll ...
September 18, 2006
Board of Directors: Number of Meetings
As Jim and I continue our Board Meeting series, we’ve decided to address a question that we are often asked – “How Many Board Meetings Should A VC-backed company have?”
Our ...
July 27, 2006
Levensohn – Best Practices for Running a Board Meeting
Pascal Levensohn – the founder of Levensohn Venture Partners – wrote a comment to my post title The Agenda (in the Board of Directors series) that I wanted to promote to a ...
Board of Directors; The Agenda
The Agenda. This little one page document sets the tone, pace, and content of your board meeting. It’s fundamental to the success of a board meeting, so you’d think it ...
July 13, 2006
Board of Directors: A Little More on “The Chairman” Post
I expect The Chairman post I just put up will be controversial. If you have a different perspective, or a bad experience with a board that has a chairman, please ...
Board of Directors: The Chairman
Rob Shurtleff – a VC in Seattle with Divergent Ventures – whom I’ve gotten to know over the past year, dropped me a note with some ideas about a few ...