The Unlisted Board – Page 2 – The Unlisted Board

New Board Guide – The Complex CEO-Chairman Relationship

By The Unlisted Board|2021-08-12T09:28:14+01:00August 3rd, 2021|The Board - Theory and Practice, The CEO/Founder, The Chairman, NEDs, Capital Providers, Short Articles|

The Fourth Short Guide to Key Aspects of the Unlisted Board is now out! A good Chairman was appreciated as a real asset by every interviewee that had one. There are plenty of formal definitions of the role of the Chairman. However templates, no matter how worthy, are always cookie-cutter. Size, stage, phase, type of company, sector, personalities, country will mean that for the far-less-systematised unlisted Board no single recipe will be The Answer. The realpolitik of the Boardroom is that it is all ultimately about who has power or in other terms control. Somewhere along the journey from NewCo

Never Hire “Just A NED” – Hire One Of These Nine Types Of NED

By The Unlisted Board|2021-07-30T12:25:53+01:00July 30th, 2021|NEDs, Longer Articles, Realpolitik Extracts|

<Extract from Chapter 7 of Realpolitik “NEDs”> Never hire “just a NED” – hire a certain type of NED that fills a gap for your Company and your Board. We take a look at nine types of NED – which do you have? Which don’t you have that you would like to have? What do you want from your NEDs? ... “Where is the value-add? Intros? Mentoring? Raise capital with you?” “Don’t just put anyone on the Board – people see it as a status symbol.” The most important aspect is to build a balanced team on the Board: “On

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance CEO

By The Unlisted Board|2021-07-23T11:57:53+01:00July 23rd, 2021|The CEO/Founder, Short Articles, Realpolitik Extracts|

<Extract from Chapter 5 of Realpolitik “The CEO/Founder”> “For a sole founder in particular it can be a very lonely journey” It is a tough gig being a founder. A US stat I was told was that the average founder has failed four times before. This introduces the need for such folks to have their own support mechanism around them outside of any individual companies (which may come and go) to help them pick themselves back up off the floor. As we shall see, NEDs have differing emphases on “supporting” vs “challenging” CEOs at the Board. However in the early

Book Review: “Business Angel Investing” Richard Hargreaves – 5/5*

By The Unlisted Board|2021-07-23T11:56:54+01:00July 16th, 2021|Capital Providers, Book Reviews, Short Articles|

"Angel-investing" - the provision of private equity finance by private individuals - is essential to small businesses the world round. In the UK it is the principal source of equity raises in the £1-2m sector. In the US virtually every MegaTech company one has heard of started with Angel financing. Thus this is an essential topic to know about not just for Angels but also for entrepreneurs who, the better they understand the Angels world, the better able they will be to raise finance from them. Richard's experience is unique in terms of having continuously been involved in unquoted investment

Learning From Boardroom Battles – Pistols At Dawn in Calcutta, 1780

By The Unlisted Board|2021-07-23T11:57:29+01:00July 9th, 2021|Fixing Broken Boards, Company Governance History, Longer Articles|

Boardrooms notoriously, if unsuspectingly for the naive, can become Cauldrons Of Emotion. Power, betrayal, plotting and deceit can become the order of the day. But it’s probably been a while since they were resolved by pistols at dawn… In the late 18thC there was a long-running saga involving Board conflict between the East India Company’s perhaps best-ever Governor General in India, Warren Hastings, and a State appointee to a newly-formed “Board of Control”, Sir Philip Francis. This was a classic example where Board frictions superficially arise from personality differences. However as in many such cases there are underlying organisational issues

The Uncultured Board

By The Unlisted Board|2021-07-23T11:57:45+01:00November 19th, 2020|Fixing Broken Boards, Short Articles, Realpolitik Extracts|

[Extract from Chapter 9 of Realpolitik "Fixing Broken Boards] “My hot tip? Mentor the Board – ensure that everyone is on the same page.” [Experienced CEO/entrepreneur] Only in the later stages of growth with an IPO in mind does the whole There Is Only One True Path For Your Board thing start impacting your poetry. Before that you have freedom. Use it while it lasts! Have a clear vision of the type of Board culture you are trying to create. If your fairy Godmother appeared now and offered three wishes for your Board what would they be? What culture do you want? What

The “Fish Rots From The Head Down” Board

By The Unlisted Board|2021-07-23T11:58:09+01:00November 12th, 2020|Fixing Broken Boards, Longer Articles, Realpolitik Extracts|

[Extract from Chapter 9 of Realpolitik "Fixing Broken Boards] Whatever your Board challenge your Chairman is likely to be the first port of call – after all apart from “it [the Board] is his job” he really should have vastly more experience of Boards than you. As a founder/CEO in a sense you’d like to delegate a lot of the Board functioning to the Chairman in the same way you’d like to delegate Marketing to a CMO. You want to retain involvement in input in both but you would really rather someone more experienced and better at it than you did all the heavy lifting

The Entrepreneurial Board – Poetry Regardless Of Metre (LLPs, LLCs, Corporations, Ltds, PLCs et al)

By The Unlisted Board|2021-07-23T11:58:25+01:00November 5th, 2020|The Board - Theory and Practice, Short Articles|

As I noted in a prior blog: “You an have LLCs or Corporations, Listed and Unlisteds, Limited Liabilities and Partnerships, Limited Liability Partnerships. In France a quick Google tells me you can have SARLs, EURLs, SELARLs, SAs, SASs, SNCs. The list goes on and on. Spend too much time looking at it and you start thinking that maybe it's time for the Good Lord to send a new flood and wipe the slate clean so we can start over.” Of course that was a simplification as even in the US laws/rules vary from state to state as to exactly

Business Regulation in 1000AD

By The Unlisted Board|2021-07-23T11:58:45+01:00October 29th, 2020|Company Governance History, Regulation Then and Now, Short Articles, Realpolitik Extracts|

In previous posts we have looked at how Business Regulation worked 4,000 years ago and how the first English Companies were governed nigh on 500 years ago. This week we land in the middle with a look at how business regulation worked a thousand years ago. Mind you even recent copies of the core text will cost you £198 right now. So maybe a peep will be good enough? Note the simplicity and clarity of both regulation and punishment - something that we have totally lost in the 21stC - as a consequence of which much human activity that

If You Didn’t Have Board Meetings Then, Apart From Not Being Part Of A Chain Gang, What Two Key Things Would You Miss Out On?

By The Unlisted Board|2022-01-28T12:26:51+00:00October 22nd, 2020|The Board - Theory and Practice, Longer Articles|

The legal aspects of Boards differ from country to country and in some cases from State to State. There are LLCs and Corporations, Listed and Unlisteds, Limited Liabilities and Partnerships or indeed Limited Liability Partnerships. In France a quick Google tells me you can have SARLs, EURLs, SELARLs, SAs, SASs, SNCs. The list goes on and on. Spend too much time looking at it and you start wondering whether it isn't maybe time for the Good Lord to send a flood and wipe the slate clean again so we can start over. It would certainly provide a different answer to

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