ThemeGovernance, Legal & Risk
CardCard 4 of 66
Questions5 to explore

Board

Advisors, owners & board of directors

The board is where ownership, oversight, and accountability formally meet, and a well-documented board makes that meeting legible to everyone.

Who sits on the board, what they are responsible for, and how decisions get made there shapes how the whole organization is governed. When that information exists only in the founders' heads or scattered across old emails, the organization is more fragile than it looks.

Board memory covers both the structure (who the members are, what their mandate is, how long they serve) and the substance (what the board has decided, what was discussed, what was deferred). Minutes are the formal record, but a plain summary of major decisions over the past year is often more useful in practice.

For companies with advisory boards or informal oversight structures, the same principle applies even without the legal formality: write down who the advisors are, what they were asked to do, and what they have actually contributed.

What to capture

For this part of the company brain, what is worth writing down and keeping current. The goal is not a complete archive but a living record that new people can read and returning people can trust.

Members & mandates

Current board or advisory board members, including their background, how they were appointed, and when their term ends.

Decision history

A log of significant board decisions: what was decided, the date, and the key reasoning, not just the formal minutes.

Meeting rhythm

How often the board meets, who prepares the materials, and what a normal agenda looks like.

Governance documents

The foundational documents that define the board's authority, such as articles of association, shareholder agreements, or board charters.

Questions to explore

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

Who currently sits on the board or advisory board, and when were they last confirmed in that role?
Where do board minutes live, and are they complete for the past three years?
What are the three most significant decisions the board has made in the last two years, and is the reasoning recorded?
Does the board know the organization's current financial position, key risks, and strategic priorities?
If the founding team changed, would the board have enough context to govern effectively?

Things to notice

Board minutes that record only the decisions, not the discussion or the alternatives considered, lose most of their value as institutional memory.
Advisory boards that were set up informally often have no documented scope, no agreed time commitment, and no process for rotating members, which makes them hard to manage over time.
If the board composition reflects who was helpful at founding rather than what the organization needs now, that gap should be explicit rather than quietly tolerated.