Practice 04 · Board advisory & non-executive positions
Two ways to have us in the room.
Advising the board from outside it — or, for a small number of companies each year, taking the seat. Both matter. They are different products.
We are practitioners, not consultants. We have started dozens of companies, invested in hundreds of startups, sat on their boards, and helped governments write the policy that lets them exist in the first place.
Most firms selling "board services" quietly do both — a bit of coaching, a bit of governance, a bit of a name on the deck. We separate them on purpose.
Board advisory is a working relationship with the board — external, senior, project-shaped, and paid for accordingly. You keep control of the composition of the room.
A non-executive position is different. It is a fiduciary role, a two- or three-year commitment, and one the principal takes on personally in only a handful of companies at any time.
Two engagement shapes
How we work with boards.
Engagement A
Board advisory.
We work with the board — chair, CEO, and directors — as an outside practitioner. Effectiveness reviews, chair & CEO succession planning, strategy off-sites, remuneration & equity structure, board-level risk on AI and technology, and preparation for a major transition (funding round, transaction, IPO). Delivered as a defined project or a light retainer.
Stage
Series A to public
Shape
Project or retainer
Compensation
Fee, on enquiry
Engagement B
Non-executive director. The principal, personally.
A formal board seat, held by the principal. Full participation in the board rhythm, committee work as appropriate, and CEO support between meetings. A hard cap of four seats at any time — that scarcity is the offer. Two- to three-year commitments, remunerated in cash and equity.
Stage
Series A onward
Commitment
24–36 months
Compensation
Cash + equity
The best board member I have ever had. Also, notably, the quietest in the room. Placeholder— CEO, growth-stage healthtech company
Why four.
A board seat is only useful when the person around the table has genuine bandwidth for the company between meetings — to read the numbers properly, to take the CEO's call at the awkward hour, to sit with the general counsel through the difficult one.
Four is the number at which that is still true. Above four, board work becomes attendance. Below four, the practice starves. It is a working number, not a marketing one.
When we take a seat, we mean it. That is why we take so few.
We take on companies where the underlying business has already proved something, where the next chapter genuinely matters, and where the chair and CEO are honest about what they do not know yet.
We do not take on companies that want a name on the deck, that want a rubber-stamp board, or where the founder is more interested in fundraising than operating.
If any of that sounds like the seat you are trying to fill, we are the right conversation.
If the room matters to you, it matters to us.
Board conversations start with a call between principals — chair, CEO, and principal. No intermediaries.
Book a conversation