Establishing, Managing and Working With an Advisory Board or Board of Directors

Tech CEOs are challenged to correctly work with an advisory board and/or a board of directors. However, through tactical member selection and adherence to board best practices, tech CEOs can establish an organizational body that will fill gaps in their knowledge base and provide actionable insight.

Proper staffing and utilization of boards can have a critical impact on startups via the acceleration of corporate development. For example, a good advisory board:

• Augments core competencies
• Helps the business foresee and avoid potential mistakes
• Streamlines business processes
• Facilitates connections with outside sources for external validation and advice
• Enables executives to maintain focus on day-to-day prioritie

Gartner analysts have produced a wide variety of research to help tech CEOs overcome the challenges associated with advisory boards and boards of directors. In this Research Roundup, we highlight eight documents that are key to better board organization, communication, presentation and overall management of an AB or BoD. The first six, focusing specifically on the tech CEO, offer clear actionable advice on how to better create, manage and operationalize the board.

Also included in this Research Roundup is a special edition of core research entitled “COVID-19: What the Board of Directors Needs to Know.” Executive leaders should use this presentation, created specifically for a board of directors audience, to present an action plan to the board. The focus of this presentation is not how to deal with the COVID-19 crisis in the immediate time frame, but the actions that can help the enterprise come out of the crisis even stronger.

Gartner Clients can access this collection of research at Gartner.com