Featuring candid insights from leading investors, executives, academics and development finance professionals, this governance resource is dedicated to helping board directors and executives/founders navigate challenges of steering a growth-stage, innovative company toward success.

Corporate Governance for Early-Stage, Innovative Companies: A Practical Resource Guide | Center for Financial Inclusion

Key Takeaways

• It’s important for early-stage companies, especially innovative ones with exponential growth and market disruption potential, to be proactive about governance by ensuring a strong board is in place before periods of growth and important inflection points occur.
• Boards need to ensure investors are aligned on social mission and values.
• It’s important for the role of the board and the role of individual board members to be clearly defined and understood from the outset. This means that investor board members should be neither too involved in operations, nor merely fulfilling an obligation to have a board seat.
• The role of boards will evolve as a company grows and innovates, but strong, well-functioning boards add value at every stage of a company’s growth and development.Board meetings should to be held at regular intervals, and attendees should “do their homework” and be prepared to actively participate.
• Having a board provide “checks and balances” doesn’t necessarily mean slowing down growth or innovation. Strong boards challenge founders, make important introductions, partner in growth, and ultimately make a company more sustainable for the long term.