How can you identify board members with the skills and experience needed for your organization?

You can start by conducting a thorough assessment of your organization's current board composition and identifying any gaps in skills, expertise, or experience. You also need to consider factors such as industry knowledge, functional expertise, leadership and experience. It is important to reach out to colleagues, partners, clients and other stakeholders for recommendations and referrals to help you identify candidates with the specific skills and experience you're seeking. Of course you can also promote board opportunities, screen and assess board dynamics while providing onboarding and training.

Before selecting a Board Member, you should clearly define your organizational pain points. What does this mean for a Start up or an already established company? Take a look into the different parts of your company (Finance, Sales, Operations, Products / Service Management) and simply define a list of missing human qualification & skills or even processes to become sucessful with your Organisation. Define these sucess factors, rate them with a level of importance and start to look for those potential Board Members who can close the gaps. On Startups it mostly looks different then on an already established corporate, mainly dependent on the financial part where the search for a new investor is a daily challenge as a CEO or Managing Director.

It is important to identify the skills set needed for your business. You also need to look at organisational objectives ,its current strengths and also weakness. You may need to look at the competence of individuals chosen based on knowledge , experience and skills. You can use the set criteia to profile individuals chosen and shortlist them for possible selection.

Organizational needs vary from business to business. What is important is to first understand where you are weak. Is it financial, operational, Sales, new market, existing market and so on. Once it is identified where your focus has to be then the process of addressing the needs can be approached. This is the starting point to look for board members with the skill sets to formulate a strategy that will move the organization in the direction it will need to go. Easily said challenge in the undertaking. Then again what worthwhile has ever been straightforward or easy.

I agree that the selection and recruitment of board members for any organisation can be challenging. In addition to defining the board's needs and creating a training plan for the potential board members; a structured code of conduct should be drafted and implemented to ensure that the board has an Ethical flow to it's activities.

The sourcing of potential candidates for a Board it is highly recommended to start as early as possible, mainly depending on the external view of potential customers, as well as investors. A well established Board with market experts will help to speed up the business extremely. Trust into the company could become visible, if a potential buyer of a product or a potential investor is looking deep dive into the company. Especially with the offering of real Experts in the back (well know and established market leaders) , helps from a selling of products and services side, as well as bringing more trust even to investors into the company, so a CEO or Managing Dirctor can use the Board expertise for a better Sales driven market approach.

Clear communication at every stage fosters co-operation and collaboration. Where relevant, potential board members should be in the same location geographically to aid the organization achieve it's objectives, mission and vision.

??Create your ideal board persona and create a prompt for ChatGPT to generate the ideal board posting to attract that persona!

In my experience as serving as an executive board member for many years, a diverse board with the same goal is key. After sourcing potential members they should all submit a full bio complete, work experience and why it is important to them to be on your board. They should be fully informed of the expectations you have of them as a board member and should exhibit full commitment to the board and the company’s mission. If your board requires financial commitment you should make sure they have the ability to commit to that as well. The benefits of having a great board that works well together and believes in the organization propels the organization forward.

Developing and believing. Offering the opportunity to develop the vision. It is not prudent for any organization to deprive the vision and actions of any employee or anyone on the Board. Shalom!