5 Ways Independent Directors Can Help Drive Growth

1. Encouraging Objectivity

Even the most data-driven founders and CEOs can have difficulties viewing the Product Market Fit (“PMF”) of their business objectively. Selectively focusing on passion projects and turning a blind eye to problems or obstacles can lead to future complications. Being engaged with the business but removed from its day-to-day affairs, independent directors can provide dispassionate but informed insights that executive decision-makers might overlook. It can be the difference between doing what you have always done and making the critical breakthrough where you hit exponential growth based on true PMF.

2. Directing Your Focus Where it Counts

Independent directors have experience in identifying what works in the organisations they support. Their ability to identify areas that merit a greater investment of resources can be invaluable for businesses. It can be the difference between juggling five or six average products and having the confidence to concentrate all your resources on one game-changer. 

3. Connecting Your Company with Key Contacts

Independent directors can accelerate the trajectory of your business by opening access to trusted advisors or new customer channels. For example, that might involve connecting you with the right advisor to unlock your digital marketing strategy, an introduction to a successful entrepreneur in your sector who can help you unlock your operations or an introduction to a transformational new client in a new market you had no idea existed. The alternative is endless meetings, calls and costs with time wasters that lead nowhere.  

4. Attracting Investors and Lenders with an Independent Perspective

When CEOs and founders market their business, potential investors and lenders may see their perspectives as inherently biased and, therefore, less legitimate. Independent directors provide credibility and assurance that you are a well-run organisation worth backing. It fuels a self-fulfilling prophecy where the company is better funded which makes it more highly valued and means it gets better funded.

5. Identifying Bottlenecks 

Often the limiting factors constraining businesses are not those the executive team assumes, which are framed by their own limited experiences. For example, sometimes businesses assume they can’t grow any faster because the supply of talent is limited. A good non-executive might be able to help the organisation unlock new sources of talent, whether it’s through tapping into global talent pools, adjacent markets the executive team hadn’t considered or government schemes that help them develop their own.