Where can I find gender and diversity information about a company's board members?

The point of advising is to have fun but it's also to align with the upside of the business. So the things to consider / ensure are. - Are they venture backeable ... if they don't plan (or you don't see them being able to) raise venture capital, then being a formal advisor (with equity) won't matter. - Do you trust them. As an advisor, you're extended your brand and credibility to the team so you need to ensure they'll be good stewards of it. - Are they coacheable ... when you talk, do they listen and are open to the advice. Do they take action? As for compensation & commitment, here's what's normal. - 0.1-1% equity in the early stages .. usually over 2 years vesting monthly. - You make yourself available for 1-2 hour per month, and help throughout making introductions, reviewing documents,etc Personally, I think it's super important to ensure you tell what you won't be doing. Ex: I won't be accountable for a work product, as in - I'm not going to run your marketing / development team :) You never know what people expect, so it's best to discuss it upfront. Also, if you plan on doing formal advisory (for compensation) - it's ideal to get atleast 10+ companies to help out in that format to ever see a financial return ... your essentially acting much like a VC. So just understand, there's a very high likely hood that it won't go anywhere financially .. but it can be super rewarding. The key is that you enjoy spending time with the team and learning about their journey.

Generally speaking for early-stage companies with less than $1m in total funding, boards function on a very bare bones basis. They would convene *at most* 4 times a year (and 4 would be atypical) to pass resolutions that require board approval. I believe you were the same person who asked about recruiting board members. If you have questions that remain upon reviewing my two answers, happy to do a quick call to provide you further clarity.

It’s pretty simple, your offering has a lot of issues for what and how you’re targeting - you product, money, it’s a “commodity” so why you, your money, your firm? - The big boys (public) have tremendous relationships with big, known, credible capital sources. - They’re sophisticated so they know your capital has to be roughly at the same costs as the many trusted avenues they currently have for capital - I mentioned “trusted” a few times as it’s KEY. Does the firm you represent have a well known brand or known trust elements? - They are public companies and risk adverse so the likelihood of them entertaining a cold call or cold email from an unknown capital source is very low. Why? All things being similar they’re much better off taking and announcing capital from a trusted branded bank or firm. - Trust: with all the capital scams out there triggered, especially online, they are likely also reacting to scam risk first. Unless you have a trusted product (brand, people, story etc) and a way to get in front of prospects in a trusted way (conferences v email) i think the odds are really tough the bigger the company. Perhaps your product offering fit smaller or growth stage companies who have less options and aren’t public facing where Capital brand is so important. B

The easiest way would probably be to join a recruiter clack group (e.g. https://weirdlyhub.com/peoplepeople-slack-community-recruiters-hr/) and reach out to people there. You could also do a search on LinkedIn for: 'recruiter', and if you have a particular geographic area you want to focus on just include that in the search too. Reaching out to the people you find on those platforms can be done in a couple different ways, and the best one will depend on what it is you're trying to communicate or ask. If you'd like more specific advice relevant to your particular product or service, feel free to send along further information, best, Lee

A lot of people see still see diversity as a Nice to Have, rather than something that affects their bottomline. Although most coverage and research have been done primarily by niche market groups, even McKinsey early in 2015 put out this big report, touting real data: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/why_diversity_matters. If you'd like to discuss diversity hiring practices through various stages, shoot me a call!