Jul 12, 2026 · 21 min · 13 segments
Corporate board opportunities rarely go to the most qualified executive. They go to the executive who is visible, positioned correctly, and connected to the right decision-makers. In this session…
Debra BoggsHost
What makes someone board ready? Well, what we know from the research that we have done on interviewing dozens of board level recruiters, board leaders, and leaders in the industry around board readiness, we know that typically, a C level title is is required to be able to get that board seat.
So sometimes people are thinking about board work and they think about, okay, there's some career management pieces that need to happen first to then be board ready, right? To be qualified for a board seat.
Either that, or there's gonna be a deep functional or deep industry expertise in a way that you wouldn't get from someone with maybe more general experience.
And so, you know, if you work for say Meta, there's only a few C-level titles, right? But a higher level title with really deep functional or industry expertise will still work.
The other piece is we need to think about board governance and corporate governance a little bit differently.
Some of those things include global work, managing a company through an exit or merger, divestiture, some sort of an event, an IPO, things like that.
Maybe you're a specialist in helping Pre-seed companies, you know, scale and get to the next level round of funding, fundraising expertise, things like this.
Or some governance expertise, right? So how do you get corporate governance expertise if you haven't sat on a board, right? And there are a lot of programs out there that are helpful in learning the language around corporate governance.
But maybe taking a couple of courses, there's an unending amount of courses on corporate governance.
Everyone from you know, nonprofit organizations to the Ivy League schools to NACD, all of these, there's a ton of options.
We like private directors association courses because to be honest, they're really high quality and they're very low cost for around corporate governance.
What makes someone board ready? Well, what we know from the research that we have done on interviewing dozens of board level recruiters, board leaders, and leaders in the industry around board readiness, we know that typically, a C level title is is required to be able to get that board seat.
So sometimes people are thinking about board work and they think about, okay, there's some career management pieces that need to happen first to then be board ready, right? To be qualified for a board seat.
Either that, or there's gonna be a deep functional or deep industry expertise in a way that you wouldn't get from someone with maybe more general experience.
And so, you know, if you work for say Meta, there's only a few C-level titles, right? But a higher level title with really deep functional or industry expertise will still work.
The other piece is we need to think about board governance and corporate governance a little bit differently.
Some of those things include global work, managing a company through an exit or merger, divestiture, some sort of an event, an IPO, things like that.
Maybe you're a specialist in helping Pre-seed companies, you know, scale and get to the next level round of funding, fundraising expertise, things like this.
Or some governance expertise, right? So how do you get corporate governance expertise if you haven't sat on a board, right? And there are a lot of programs out there that are helpful in learning the language around corporate governance.
But maybe taking a couple of courses, there's an unending amount of courses on corporate governance.
Everyone from you know, nonprofit organizations to the Ivy League schools to NACD, all of these, there's a ton of options.
We like private directors association courses because to be honest, they're really high quality and they're very low cost for around corporate governance.
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