Susan Hayes Culleton

With all that is going on in the world, my next guest wants boards to be vibrant groups that are always ready to face any new challenge.

And it's great to welcome Shefali Yogendra, whose new book Unchartered Spaces has just been published.

So first off, Shefali, one of the things that really jumped out at me in the book is this.

You said board positions are seen as entitled, nepotistic, jobs for the boys and easygoing retirement gigs where everyone agrees with everyone, collects fees, wines and dines at the company's expense and goes home or onto the golf course.

Wow, that's a pretty hard hitting, relatively speaking, opening line when it comes to where you think board positions are at.

Where have you gathered that intel based on your experience?

So do you think that people don't think that they could be suitable for it?

Or do you think companies don't think about getting a board soon enough?

Like what is the distance between supply and demand in here?

It's one of the things I really liked about your book was the mechanics of how a board works.

Like you take people through practical things like board packs and how long they should be.

You take people through the various different fiduciary duties and how they're different in different environments.

In the foreword beforehand, the book is described as a companion and I can really see how that is the case.

But again, I want to come back to you on how quickly a company should have one, because a lot of startups or small businesses don't need one per se.

Or maybe I'm wrong.

What do you think?

When should one think about I should be putting people around the business on a board?

But if it is the case that a company doesn't have investors, if they're bootstrapped or if they're borrowing from a bank, what would the trigger be there?

I was struck by the way you characterized your own value set and what that would bring to the table.

Because I think it's interesting how a founder or indeed just simply a managing director or a CEO of a business might think about whether they need this value set because it certainly seems an interesting combination.