Ed Mason
Appearances
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: Boardroom Bound: How to Navigate Your Journey from Executive to Board Director
Emma, thanks for having me.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: Boardroom Bound: How to Navigate Your Journey from Executive to Board Director
I advise clients and candidates to be really quite selective about taking a board role. You want to find an opportunity where you can add considerable value, but it's also developmental or stretching for you and helps support you in your career. You want to spend quality time, therefore, with the chairperson and the other board directors, particularly the CEO and CFO if they sit on the board.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: Boardroom Bound: How to Navigate Your Journey from Executive to Board Director
to understand their motivations, their ethics, their perspectives on the vision and strategy for the business and the dynamics that they like to work in around the board table. Does this work for you? Is it how you enjoy engaging with others? And is that the kind of environment where you think you can bring value?
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: Boardroom Bound: How to Navigate Your Journey from Executive to Board Director
So I often say to clients and candidates that some of what you're looking to do is build bonds of trust. Some of that you need to be together. So think about travelling to board meetings or site visits or meeting with employees with another board colleague. There's another interesting aspect, which we see increasingly in British boards.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: Boardroom Bound: How to Navigate Your Journey from Executive to Board Director
And I advise candidates to think about, is there a board buddy, somebody that you could work with, a fellow non-executive director on a particular topic or initiative around the board table?
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: Boardroom Bound: How to Navigate Your Journey from Executive to Board Director
It doesn't have to be chairing formally a subcommittee like audit or remuneration, but perhaps you and one other person have particular expertise around marketing or technology transformation, something where the two of you can work together, establish a relationship of trust and support the executive in something that's actually affecting the business.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: Boardroom Bound: How to Navigate Your Journey from Executive to Board Director
Here in the UK, we talk about this all the time because board directors can serve for three, six, as long as nine years on the board of a public company. The answer is about staying informed and staying current with what's happening at your business, its industry, and other industries where there might be relevant learnings and experiences that you can draw in.
Redefiners
Leadership Lounge: Boardroom Bound: How to Navigate Your Journey from Executive to Board Director
Perhaps that's from your executive role where you're seeing the cut and thrust of business on a day-to-day basis, and there's some relevancy to your board role. Perhaps it's because you serve on two or three other boards too, and you can bring in learnings, expertise, or perhaps even your network from other businesses for the benefit of the board that you're serving on.