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“Every investor is different and their personal skill sets will also be different. Good investors know what they are good at and what they are not good at. Then they figure out how to get their companies everything they need. Even if they themselves are not good at it”
“Most businesses we purchase have a succession CEO in place who’s a professional CEO but has a tremendous amount of loyalty to the business and we typically require the exiting parties to stay in 10% to 25% so that loyalty is carried over”.
“A top performing manager will always challenge everything insofar as the strategy or tactics are incomplete or imperfect. That means always. In that sense tension is a constant, and a requirement of being a top performer”.
“The individual culture of a board varies greatly. The best boards are efficient – they involve a pre-read, have a set agenda, set aside time for strategic discussions, and have a clear decision making process.”
“For us, we really try to focus on and add value around our core skill set both because founders want and need it and it’s something we know really well. That can happen as a board member (we have seats currently on four boards) but doesn’t necessarily need to – we just need to be able to offer our expertise and ideas and make sure they’re taken seriously. Obviously, transparency and honesty is the key to a healthy relationship between the board and the CEO”.
“The best board members “work for the CEO as long as they support the CEO.” If they don’t support her, they should do something (which could mean changing the CEO, or working hard with her to get back to a place of support). For me – that’s the fundamental “trick” to being an effective board member”
“It is crucial to every board that the relationship be clear and transparent and avoid the two extremes we have seen cause problems in startup ventures: being the cheerleader board with not enough oversight like WeWork and Theranos or being the board with an adversarial approach that fires a strong leader like Steve Jobs. The key is maintaining distinct roles, transparent communication and creating an environment where both successes and failures of the business can be discussed.”
