Create Boards

What Kind of Board

Understanding your company, its future and goals will help you to identify the purpose of the board of directors that is right for your company. This could be everything from a formal Board of Directors to an informal Advisory Board.

Depending on the ownership structure, both currently and in the future, you will have a possibility to grow better with the right board.

Start by contacting the Institute for an informal discussion on where this journey can begin.

Filling the Board

Independent non-executive board members are more important than ever for bringing in fresh, unbiased guidance and control to companies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Institute provides you with a strong approach for recruiting the board members who are right for your company.

Finding a right board member can be challenging. The right person will have a strong and lengthy track record, they must also fit well with your company’s Supervisory Board and culture… but not too well, because their role is also to challenge the board and management, and to act as the link to the shareholders.

They also have to be available for the commitment required, and quickly come up to speed on the issues and challenges facing your organization, something our education program has prepared them for.

The Institute’s non-executive directors database only contains graduates of our education, and is a unique and proven resource. The database contains just the right types of candidates appropriate for independent supervisory board member work in Baltic companies.

We can quickly present a short list of suitable candidates for your consideration.

To initiate recruitment process, please contact our local offices in Vilnius or Riga.

We don’t charge our graduates for joining the database, and we don’t charge companies for access to the database. We do reserve the right to limit the access to qualified sources and projects.

Setting Goals

In the past, the most important and sometimes only task for a board was to find and appoint a CEO. That is still important, but since the Corporate Governance philosophy has extended over the world, other important elements have become more and more essential: steering, directing and advising have grown in importance.

Strategy is the board’s responsibility. The CEO presents and the board decides. The board should ask questions in the boardroom about assortment, pricing, markets, making a vision and formulating the strategy. There are many models for the Strategic Planning Process, but one should avoid making 10 years’ plan. Too much happens in the world and the economy.

Discuss in the board where you are, where should you go and how should you reach your target. The benefits of developing a strong strategy are the following:

  • It provides direction, focus and motivation;
  • Improves inter-functional relations through shared goals and clear objectives;
  • Disseminates information throughout the company;
  • Allocates resources on a rational basis, for sound commercial reasons;
  • Encourages the board to accept the need for change and to better prepare for it;
  • Helps the board to anticipate, monitor, react or pre-empt developments;
  • Influences the pace and direction of changes in the business environment to the company’s advantage.

First question in strategic options for the board and the CEO is if the company should grow organically or acquire and merge with other companies. The Board needs knowledge, experience and understanding either way.

Top