The Right Board Starts With the Founder
Investors Erik Balck Sørensen, Bodil Sidén and Helle Uth, tested live against real founder dilemmas at a Boardroom Dilemmas session, on why there’s no template for the right board — and the founder who, eleven years in, still hasn’t recovered from firing her first one.
What happens when the board that looks right on paper is completely wrong for the founder? At a live Boardroom Dilemmas session, moderated by Anne Malberg Horsager, three founders brought real, unresolved challenges to a panel of investors — Erik Balck Sørensen, Bodil Sidén and Helle Uth. The most revealing case came from a shoe-brand founder who, eleven years into building her company, still had not found a board structure that worked. Her solution, eleven years earlier, had been to fire the entire board.
When the board doesn't fit
The founder had originally built an advisory board by choosing impressive people without considering how they would work together. As a young and conflict-averse founder, she struggled with the dynamic and eventually let the whole board go.
That did not mean she had lost faith in boards. Instead, she found herself solving problems through individual experts and, in several cases, hiring people who had first invested in the company. What she needed was practical understanding of the problems in front of her — not another six-month strategy presentation.
Fit the board to the founder
The discussion highlighted how personal the relationship between a founder and a board can be. The right board member needs to know when to support, when to challenge and how closely to work with the founder.
That fit may need to be tested rather than assumed. The panel discussed the possibility of a one-year trial period, while another option could be a lightweight formal board focused mainly on compliance, supported by an informal group of people who share the founder's values.
The important distinction is between having a board and having the right board.
There is no universal answer
The same lack of a single formula emerged in two other founder dilemmas. One concerned whether to pursue the full market potential of a technology or focus on one segment first. The other asked whether a founder should continue selling personally or bring in a commercial lead.
The panel reached different conclusions on both questions, underscoring the central point: the right answer depends on the company, the founder and the situation.
The takeaway was simple: there is no perfect board structure. The right board is the one that fits the founder, the company and the stage it is in.
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