Board advisor
Technology judgement at board level, once the engineering function runs without us. We read the board pack, ask the questions a technical non-exec should ask, and stay close enough to the team to know whether the answers are true.
Where this fits
This is the end of the path, not the start of one. It usually follows a fractional CTO or coaching engagement, when the team has grown into its own capability and no longer needs us in the work. What the board still needs is someone who can tell the difference between a technology plan that is ambitious and one that is fiction.
We have held this seat for several years at a venture group, alongside coaching across the portfolio’s leadership, product, and engineering teams. That combination is the point: a board view that is informed by time spent with the people doing the work.
The questions we ask
- Is the architecture something the next funding round can stand behind?
- Is the engineering plan the team presented actually deliverable at this headcount?
- What technology risk is not in the board pack, and why not?
- Where is the security, data protection, and compliance exposure?
- Is the CTO getting the support they need, or the scrutiny they need?
- What does the build-versus-buy call look like three years out, not one?
How it works
We read the pack before the meeting rather than in it, and come with written questions. Between meetings there is a standing line to the CTO or engineering lead, because a board advisor who only appears quarterly is reacting to news rather than seeing it coming. That contact is support for the technology leader, not surveillance of them, and we say so to both sides at the start.
We are explicit about the boundary. A board advisor does not run the engineering function, does not carry delivery accountability, and does not sit between the CTO and the board. Where a company needs someone in the work, that is a fractional or interim engagement and we will say so rather than stretch this one to cover it.
Who it’s for
Boards of early-stage and scaling companies, and the investors and venture studios behind them.
No technical voice in the room
Your board has commercial and financial depth and nobody who can read an architecture decision.
A raise on the horizon
You are heading into diligence and want the hard questions asked internally first, by someone on your side.
An engagement winding down
A fractional or interim engagement is ending well and you want to keep the judgement without keeping the days.
A portfolio to oversee
You back several companies and want one technologist who can hold the technical view across the portfolio.
Engagement shape
Board meetings plus a day a month, on a rolling arrangement reviewed annually. Usually follows a fractional CTO or coaching engagement, and runs for as long as the board wants the view.