What the Best Boards for Scaling Businesses Get Right

When you hear the word “board,” what do you picture?

For many people, it’s a group of men in suits sitting around a long table, thick board packs in front of them, ready for a formal, structured meeting. There’s often a heavy air of hierarchy and formality. It can feel intimidating, overly corporate, and far removed from the realities of building and growing a business.

But that version of a board just doesn’t work for fast-moving, high-growth companies. Especially when you're an early stage founder still shaping the business, raising investment, building a team, and navigating scale.

In this environment, a traditional board structure often adds unnecessary friction or pressure. What’s really needed is something quite different: a board that supports momentum, encourages ambition, and grows alongside the business.

So what does that kind of board actually look like?

1. Strategy First, With the Right Level of Accountability

In more established businesses, boards tend to focus heavily on governance. Reviewing financials, managing risk, signing off decisions. All important, of course, but for a growing company, it can’t be the only lens.

What’s needed is a board that’s actively engaged in strategy. One that understands the vision, contributes ideas, asks the right questions, and helps shape the direction of travel.

There still needs to be accountability. But that accountability should feel supportive, constructive, and focused on what’s ahead, not just what’s already happened.

2. Founders Need Challenge They Can Trust

Founders in high-growth businesses are under a lot of pressure. They’re moving fast, making big decisions, learning as they go. What they don’t need is a board that either rubber-stamps everything or constantly knocks them back.

The best boards find the balance. They ask tough questions, challenge assumptions, and bring fresh thinking, but but they do it from a place of belief in the founder and commitment to the mission.

That kind of challenge builds confidence. It helps founders grow as leaders, and it creates a culture of openness and shared ownership at the top.

3. Flexibility and Responsiveness Are Essential

Let’s be honest: the pace in a high-growth company is relentless. The situation can change week to week, sometimes even day to day. That quarterly board meeting, scheduled months in advance, won’t always cut it.

A great board in this context is available when needed. It’s a WhatsApp message, a quick call, a check-in between meetings to help unblock a decision or sense-check a plan.

This isn’t about overstepping boundaries or micromanaging. It’s about being responsive, collaborative, and ready to act when the business needs it.

4. The Power of a Good Chair

One of the most valuable assets in a high-growth board is a strong Chair. Someone who can create the right environment for effective discussion, manage board dynamics, and ensure the founder feels supported but also constructively challenged.

A good Chair sets the tone. They help focus the agenda on what really matters, keep conversations strategic, and make sure all voices are heard - especially the founder’s. They also act as a sounding board between meetings, often playing a key role in founder development and wellbeing.

When the Chair gets it right, the whole board functions better. And so does the business.

5. The Right Experience, Not Just Impressive CVs

It can be tempting to bring in big corporate names for your board - people with years of experience, impressive titles, and strong networks. But that doesn’t always translate into value for a business that’s growing fast and facing constant change.

What really helps is experience that’s relevant. People who’ve raised capital, scaled teams, launched products, broken into new markets. People who know what it’s like to lead through uncertainty.

And diversity matters. Gender, ethnicity, background, mindset - a range of perspectives leads to better decisions. It also reflects the kind of inclusive, future-focused business most early stage founders are trying to build.

6. Alignment on Values and Vision

Ultimately, the best boards are built on trust. There has to be genuine alignment between the founder and the board around what the business is here to do and how it’s going to get there.

That doesn’t mean always agreeing. It means having the same North Star, and being able to challenge each other respectfully along the way.

If a board member doesn’t buy into the founder’s values or leadership style, it’s never going to work, no matter how good they are on paper.

Time to Rethink the Boardroom

Boards don’t have to be formal, corporate, and intimidating. For high-growth companies, they can be energising, inspiring, and incredibly useful, if they’re designed with the right mindset.

As more early stage founders build businesses that challenge the status quo, we need board structures that support them to thrive.

That means doing things differently. And that’s a good thing.