Selecting and Managing a Board

Tom Burke (Chief Financial Officer of Hydra Biosciences), Joshua Fox (Partner at WilmerHale), Mike Massaro (Chief Executive Officer of Flywire) and Sameer Sabir (Chief Financial Officer of SevenOaks Biosystems) spoke at WilmerHale's QuickLaunch University on Best Practices for Building a Board of Directors and Board of Advisors. Over the next several weeks, we will share comments on the topic. This week, we take a look at selecting and managing a board of directors.  

Forming a board of directors is like completing a jigsaw puzzle: a founder has to find the right people who fit with the company's culture and can guide its management from a strategic perspective. The company's life stage and industry are often critical in determining the composition of a board. A company could have a small board initially, then as it grows and raises additional rounds of funding, the board can expand and evolve. It is difficult to remove a board member at a later time, so