For founders navigating the stormy waters of entrepreneurship, the effectiveness and engagement of the board can keep a company afloat—or, conversely, sink it.
In the second of a four part video mini-series, Roger Lee, general partner at Battery Ventures, and Nick Mehta, CEO of customer success management platform Gainsight*, dive into the dynamics of successful board composition and strategy.
Mehta describes Lee, a founding investor, as having undertaken a leadership role among fellow board members. He goes on to make the case that thinking strategically about board composition is critical. It’s essential, argues Mehta, to create a roster with a “diversity of opinions, backgrounds, and personalities.”
Echoing this concept, Lee says that boards of “generalists” sometimes evolve, with the “reality that none of them have time to go deep in any one area.” Lee suggests assigning different specializations – such as sales, marketing, operations, and finance – thus allowing board members to narrow their focus and mentor key executives to become “wingmen of particular disciplines.”
The next video in the series explores how Mehta manages through adversity and involves Lee and other board members in the process, with the final video analyzing Mehta’s management style, which Lee describes as exhibiting “radical transparency.” The initial video, providing lessons on how to make a CEO/VC relationship thrive, is available here.
This material is provided for informational purposes, and it is not, and may not be relied on in any manner as, legal, tax or investment advice or as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any fund or investment vehicle managed by Battery Ventures or any other Battery entity.
The information and data are as of the publication date unless otherwise noted.
Content obtained from third-party sources, although believed to be reliable, has not been independently verified as to its accuracy or completeness and cannot be guaranteed. Battery Ventures has no obligation to update, modify or amend the content of this post nor notify its readers in the event that any information, opinion, projection, forecast or estimate included, changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate.
The information above may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or expectations. Predictions, opinions and other information discussed in this video are subject to change continually and without notice of any kind and may no longer be true after the date indicated. Battery Ventures assumes no duty to and does not undertake to update forward-looking statements.
*Denotes a Battery portfolio company. For a full list of all Battery investments, please click here.
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