Being the owner/CEO of a small business is a fairly lonely proposition.  There aren’t many people inside your business you can talk with about problems and ideas you have.  Many small business owners have found the sounding board of a group of advisors to be a valuable remedy for this problem. A board of advisors is different from a board of directors and is also different from consultants.  The board of advisors does one thing: giving the best advice they can to the CEO of the company. Boards of Directors, by contrast, not only have a fiduciary obligation to the shareholders of the company, they make binding decisions about key actions in the company.  Consultants may or may not actually make decisions and/or execute decisions, but they tend to be more short-range and transitory than the advisory board.

The panelists in this program, all graduates of COSE’s Strategic Planning Course, will share with you their own experiences in creating their boards, running board meetings, and even serving on boards for other companies. They will cover a lot of ground from selection of board members, compensation for board activities, meeting frequency and timing.There will be time to answer questions from the audience.