If you want a board appointment, it is essential that you know your value and capability at board level and then be able to articulate it. This is what your board profile should do. If you get it right, it is a powerful statement that will support you to get appointed. If you get it wrong, it will have the opposite effect.
Writing your board profile is challenging, and my clients often struggle with it. In fact, when I work through the process with my NED Members, we spend a pretty intense hour 1:1 together, often producing just the first draft. So, if you are finding it difficult to produce a profile you feel works, don’t be discouraged. It is also possible you are thinking about it backwards.
Regardless, to be successfully appointed, it is essential to get your board profile right. From my experience in writing thousands of them, this means focusing on six (6) key elements and developing structure around them.
The six key elements of a formal board profile
It is useful to think of your board profile as a board pitch that answers the question, ‘Why should we appoint you to our board?’. It is useful to think of it this way so that you can frame your response appropriately. Most people get this wrong by delivering a pitch that addresses their motivations and not the 5 core elements that a Chair/decision-maker wants to see in a successful candidate.
Element 1 – Derisk and Assure
To a chair or board seeking a new NED, the purpose of a board profile is to derisk a candidate’s appointment. Your opening statement needs to provide this confidence and be supported with details of your experience and value at the board level. Ideally, you should focus on convincing people that you are not an aspiring NED but rather a successful board-level professional.
So, if possible, start your formal board profile by telling people that you have done the role before. If you have held, or currently hold, a Chair or Non-Executive Director (NED) role(s), you must always start with this. If you haven’t, I recommend that you get a little creative. This may involve leveraging any committee, voluntary, governance or board-level experience.
You should then continue your opening statement to include the amount of experience, by way of time, that you have in this space. Following this, but within the same sentence, you should also list your past executive titles such as CEO, Director, Accountant, Lawyer, HR Director, etc. Only use your title, not a description of what you do here. This section is about providing comfort that you have the strategic skills required at the board level.
It is important to be clear about your board-level experience (executive or non-executive) so that others quickly establish your value and ‘peg’ you accordingly. Demonstrating some form of governance experience, whether as a board or committee member, at the outset is extremely compelling.
Ideally, this sentence should begin with something like “I am a non-executive (or similar board-level title that you have) and (insert your descriptive executive title) with X years (the number of years you have been working on and with boards) of board-level experience working across the (list the industries and sectors) sectors with the likes of (list the companies you want to highlight).”
Element 2 – What do you do?
“At board level, what I do is…” is how the next element begins. Consider this element as stating what you will deliver if appointed to the role. What would be the outcomes of your appointment? Essentially, the ROI that the company or organisation will gain by investing in you. It is not a HOW question; it is a WHAT question.
Element 3 – How do you do that?
The third element begins with “I do that by…”. This element defends the statement above and explains how you will use your skills and experience to deliver the company or organisation’s desired ROI.
Element 4 – Prove It
Anyone can say that they can help an organisation grow; however, the proof is in the showing. So, this element should include two examples of how you have used your skills and experience to deliver the outcome you promised in Element 2.
Ideally, these examples would be as a board member, but if you don’t have this level of experience, you can use your executive experience to demonstrate transferable and strategic expertise. But do not get too deep into the details. Remember you are pitching for a governance role, not a consultant gig or executive position.
Element 5 – Guide Them
Demonstrating your value at board level is all well and good, but you need your profile to unlock opportunities or influence an appointment. This penultimate element needs to do just that.
It begins with something like ‘The sort of organisation I can best help is…’. Then, go on to outline the scope and scale of your targets, where they operate, what their common problems are, and the challenges they face. You want this section to be fairly broad but also reflective of your aspirations. It might be helpful to consider this approach similar to a traditional sales pitch. You want first to highlight the pain points of the purchaser (the chair) so you can then swoop in with the solution, which is, in this case, you!
Element 6 – Further Confidence
This final section of your board profile summarises your educational qualifications and any relevant extra-professional successes. Whilst a governance qualification alone will rarely get you a board appointment, it may well be the difference between yourself and another candidate.
You might also name peak industry and/or governance bodies that you are a member of. These achievements demonstrate your commitment to your professional, leadership and governance development. Finally, if your work or life has been celebrated, mention it here. Any significant achievements listed here make you more attractive and separate you from others.
In Summary
A written board profile is pivotal in every step of the board appointment process. It is the crux of the ‘elevator pitch’ that you will use when introducing yourself, it sits at the top of your board CV, is contained within your cover letter, influences your supporting statement and answers the very first question you will get in an interview… ‘Why should we appoint you to our board?’
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About the Author
David Schwarz is CEO & Founder of Board Direction – Australia’s leading board advertising and non-executive career support firm. He has over a decade of experience of putting people on boards as an international headhunter and a non-executive recruiter and has interviewed over one thousand non-executives and placed hundreds into some of the most significant public, private and NFP roles in the world
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