Director Onboarding Series: Board Leadership (Installment 2 of 5)

MFDF has encountered various onboarding practices in discussions with fund directors that are newer or may be less common across fund boards. Consider these ideas as more of a menu than a plan, it is not necessary for a board to employ all of these approaches, but one or more may be combined according to board culture, priority, and need.

In this second installment of the Director Onboarding Series, we focus on how board leadership can facilitate onboarding. These ideas bring the board leadership into a key role with onboarding directors through one-on-one communication to ensure new directors are clear and comfortable with both the information they are responsible for and the director role itself. As board chairs are often culture-carriers for the board, these techniques can also provide opportunities to establish clarity with new directors about cultural practices and expectations in the boardroom.

• Calls or meetings ahead of board meetings – The board Chair, or a board buddy or mentor, may organize pre-calls or pre-meetings with a new director ahead of each meeting of the board for the first year or more. These calls give the new director an opportunity to ask questions about the materials, meeting norms (such as when to arrive and where to sit), where to go for additional information (if needed), and so on. These discussions may also allow the Chair or mentor to identify areas to cover or clarify in future onboarding.

• Chair follow-up – Following board meetings, the Chair of the board may organize a call or a brief coffee or meal following the meal with the new director(s) to address any outstanding questions or clarifications. This may also allow new director(s) to gain a better appreciation for the cultural norms on the board and how discussion, questions and materials flow from one meeting to the next.

Fund management and/or counsel to the independent directors may run sessions introducing new directors to the fund complex, etc. which can be instead of or in addition to any of the approaches we have included in the series. Look for future posts on:

• Utilizing a mentor/buddy program (click here to view the post);
• Building a board culture through onboarding;
• Setting new board members up for success, and;
• Creating onboarding education that sticks.