Know what you bring to the board table

Serving on a board of directors is a professional goal for many WIN members. A key piece of advice expert panelists* shared at WIN’s March event struck me as deceptively simple: Determine your skill set—what you bring to the table—and then seek out committees that suit your strengths.

Boards, and the committees that serve under them, need a range of skills to function well. With so much information available online, finding out what an organization needs is easier than ever.

The harder thing for many of us is to determine where our strengths match those needs. Each of us has a unique combination of talents and abilities we bring to the table. But we often don’t think of them in relation to service on a board of directors.

For example, someone with a knack for connecting people with resources could be a great addition to a fundraising committee, while someone who can immediately find the pattern—or the aberration—in a data set could be perfect for an audit committee.

You may have just the skill a board on which you want to serve needs. Reframing your thinking from “How can I get onto a board of directors?” to “What can I offer a board that they need but don’t already have?” can help you get the seat at the table you want.

Have you reframed your thinking since the March event? If so, how?

* The experts on the panel were Ric Andersen, Partner, Peak Equity; Patricia Connolly, Executive Director, Center for Corporate Governance, Drexel University LeBow School of Business; Ellen Harvey, CFA, Managing Director, Miller Investment Management; Jeremy Tennebaum, CFO, Altman Foundation; Nancy Wolcott, Retired Financial Services Director; and Christine James, Managing Director, Wells Fargo Asset Management