CASE STUDY

Assembling a specialist Advisory Board

Situation

One of the top global financial institutions was seeking to stay informed to take advantage of innovations in technology. The challenge was that 80% of the dialogue of the Board related to financial capital, risk and regulatory requirements.  These were not subject matters that engaged the type of individuals they were seeking; namely, those with the relevant fresh ideas that might help them to break new ground.

Approach

Previously, technology was chiefly represented at the Board by a CEO (previously a CFO and investment banker) of one of the world’s leading enterprise software corporations. Whilst this individual fitted the corporate board environment and was especially useful on infrastructure and organisation questions, replicating this profile would not provide someone with the innovative ideas desired.  At the same time, a top tech founder would be reluctant to make the commitment full board membership required. However, it was feasible to engage this kind of individual for two to three meetings per year and by creating a diverse team, it would enable having access to deeper expertise across various tech domains.

Impact

An Advisory Board team was formed that comprised some of the world’s leading thinkers and practitioners across seven main fields tech that were impacting both the financial sector and the commercial world more widely: cyber security; fintech; blockchain; AI / Robotics & NLP; big data & analytics; e-commerce and Internet of things; Cloud. This enhanced capability was an asset that helped inform the Board and gave ideas to the Executive that they could action. It contributed to change initiatives that simplified and improved how the organisation operated; it also helped to accelerate progress with programs that had emanated from the organisation’s tech labs around the world. The Advisory Board provided both significant guidance on technology investment and kept the board and executive up to date with developments in the world more broadly, in a way that having a single person as a full board member would not have done.