Originally published here.

When a company starts to run board meetings, one of the first questions is usually about the board pack - the material delivered to the board members prior to the meeting. What should be included? Where should you focus your time? What is a good structure?

Your board deck should help structure the meeting, document the status of the company and foster discussions and decisions the management wants the board to make. It should clear the path ahead for the CEO.  

To help you make the most out of your upcoming board meeting - be it the first one you've ever run or or not - we put together this exemplary board deck for you to copy, adjust, and adapt to your needs. It should serve as a helpful base to start from - not all example slides or chapters might be useful or appropriate for you.

A board deck is a living, breathing organism, which will be re-defined again and again as your company grows. This template will ensure you don’t start at zero.  

Creandum has backed more than 150 companies over the last 22 years  - each of them running multiple board meetings a year. This template aggregates best practices of many hours of time spent in the board rooms around Europe and the US - but most importantly it aggregates what our portfolio founders use to get the most out of their board meetings.

So you don’t just get the venture capitalist view on your board, we asked nine executives and founders of companies between €100m and €6b valuation to share their reflections on what matters most in their respective chapters.

CEO Update: Jordi Romero, CEO and Founder of factorial, reveals his most important slide for any board deck - the highlights and lowlights. 

Financials: Mohamed Omaizat, CFO at taxfix, elaborates on value creation through the lens of the finance department.

Re-Forecast: János Mátyásfalvi, CFO at SEON, recommends keeping it simple and focusing on the 5-6 key metrics that matter most.

Growth: Julian Collin, Director of Growth at Trade Republic, treats board meetings like a presentation to a large audience - clear story, few written words, clean graphics.

People: Gabija Marganavice, Chief People Officer, Cast AI recommends that organizational updates be clearly mapped to growth plans.

Product: Mette Gade, Chief Product Officer, at Pleo, reveals the key product-related topics she brings clarity to the board on, including short and long term product investments and how you are building a product/design/tech delivery system for speed and impact.

Strategy: Martin Ott, CEO at taxfix, recommends being clear on the desired outcome for this part of the meeting - do you need help with a strategic decision or is it about sharing context with the board so they understand where you are going.

Housekeeping: Aiga Senftleben, Co-founder and General Counsel at Billie, recommends that the ‘Housekeeping’ section is focused on decision-making rather than lengthy discussions.

Non-Executives: Johan Brenner, General Partner at Creandum, believes the significance of the non-executive discussion cannot be overstated and adequate time must be allocated to it, as well as ensuring all feedback is delivered back to the executive team with complete transparency.

Definitions: Oliver Oczycz, Chief of Staff at Vay, writes that a concise glossary at the beginning or end of a deck can significantly assist board members who might not be familiar with specific industry jargon or acronyms.

To make best use of this document, click on the button below and make a copy of the file. From there, you can edit it to your liking, design and format. 

For questions, comments and suggestions, feel free to reach out.