Building a Board Résumé 

This tool provides actionable insights for building a résumé that effectively highlights a candidate’s board-readiness and unique experience. The guidance can be tailored for various board opportunities by highlighting specific strengths or industry experiences, depending on the targeted board role. 

Introduction

Every executive is accustomed to having a résumé as a tool for career advancement, often starting from the executive’s earliest years in the workforce. The résumé for board service necessitates a shift in approach. The document must tell a story beyond career, accomplishments, and employment history. It needs to concisely and precisely outline the individual’s unique combination of skills, experience, and capacity for strategy, oversight, and insight which they will bring to the board, in the quietly competitive world of directorship. The language used, achievements highlighted, and even the format applied must lend itself to ease of reading for the audience, who is often the chair of a nominating and governance committee, general counsel, recruiter (search professional), and/or eventually the entire board.  

Building the Board Résumé 

There isn’t a single, universal approach or format for creating an effective board résumé. Below are foundational strategies to make a résumé impactful and to emphasize relevant experiences for a board role. 

• Consider starting afresh, rather than adding on to an existing corporate résumé. 
• Think about the board résumé as a marketing tool, not an historical archive of accomplishments; focus on outcomes, not on how the outcomes were achieved. 
• When drafting, consider each item through a board lens and consider, “Does it add value to the story?” 
• Use authentic adjectives that capture individuality and value, rather than generic terms such as “results-driven leader.” 
• Indicate distinguishing qualities or experiences that serve as differentiators from other candidates'. 
• Make the reader’s job easy:  
  • Any board applicant has decades of experience, and the key to a great résumé is about what not to include.  
  • Aim to keep the résumé to two to three readily navigable pages.  
  • Those with academic backgrounds and a myriad of publications should list those in an appendix, not in the body of the résumé. 
  • Use a clear, consistent, organized font, structure, style, and format.  
  • Proofread obsessively, and ask a trusted colleague or friend to review the final draft.

Anatomy of a Board Résumé 

The following tips can help structure the résumé to align with board expectations. 

Name and Contact Information

Include name, email address, and phone number. 

• Including a street or mailing address at the top of a résumé is an outdated habit.  
• Consider linking to an updated LinkedIn profile. 

Executive Summary  

In lieu of an objective, use three to four sentences to describe individual value being brought to a board and an organization, all through a leadership lens. 

• Include corporate, nonprofit, and/or advisory board roles. 
• Mention board-related responsibilities in executive roles, such as serving as a liaison to a committee or presenting to a board. 
• Describe the scope of executive job responsibilities.  
• Mention international work. 
• Highlight NACD Directorship Certification® and other education or skills specifically completed to support board-readiness. 

Board Service (if applicable)  

Board and board-related activity, while mentioned in the executive summary at the top of the résumé, deserves its own section with detailed descriptions.  

• Indicate company type, revenue, market cap, and roles on 
  • private, public, and/or nonprofit company boards; and 
  • subsidiary boards, advisory boards, and chapter boards of national organizations.  
• Include any board leadership position held, such as chair, lead director, or committee chair. 
• Optional: Share accomplishments. 
  • Consider listing bullet points that speak to key achievements across corporate experiences relevant to the board role.  
  • Quantify accomplishments where possible, using metrics that demonstrate the impact of contributions and/or the team(s) led. 

Professional Experience

Present a strategic and adequately detailed overview of professional experience to highlight one's career foundation and evolution. 

• For each position, indicate title, role, tenure, and highlights of achievements. 
  • Consider collapsing roles versus listing every title. 
  • Include early career roles unless they are irrelevant.  
• Insert a one-line description of each organization.  
• Resist the temptation to copy and paste the company’s mission statement into the role description. 
• Indicate whether it is a public (indicate ticker symbol in parentheses), private, or nonprofit organization; list the annual revenue of the enterprise (and/or market cap) where appropriate.  
• Include scope of responsibility in the functional roles, highlighting 
  • accomplishments, outcomes, P&L responsibility, special skills such as culture work, digital transformation, integration, succession talent development, M&A activity, international experience, foreign languages, specific experience such as miliary or legal, etc.  

Education  

Highlight qualifications at the end of the document. 

• List educational information.
• Include NACD Directorship Certification® and other governance-related training. 

Other 

• If relevant to the desired board seat, list select volunteer and community work, speaking engagements, publications, honors, or memberships and affiliations that demonstrate alignment with the role, the enterprise, and the mission. 

The Board Résumé’s Role in Professional Brand 

The board résumé is part of a suite of assets that every aspiring director should develop, maintain, and keep ready, whether created independently or with professional support. Taken as whole, these four assets help individuals raise their profile to boards and recruiters.

1. Board Résumé 

• Boards and recruiters typically require a board résumé if they are going to consider an individual for a role. They will need to know details about roles, the companies, and the tenure served, including the dates of service.  
• A key differentiator between an executive résumé and a board résumé is that the former is achievement based—focused on execution—and the latter is a strategic, governance-focused document that emphasizes strategy, oversight, and influence.  
• Consider keeping a “board library” of headlines that can change or be inserted or deleted depending on what a given board role might warrant in terms of industry or special skills.  

2. Board Bio 

• A one-page document, a board bio spells out a candidate’s value proposition in narrative form, using paragraphs of prose, rather than bullet points.  
• It resembles a speaker’s bio, typically includes a professional headshot, and summarizes professional experiences, accomplishments, education, and certifications.  
• Content should be restricted to exceptional items.   
• Relevant speaking engagements and honors should be included closer to the top than they would typically be in a résumé.  
• As with the board résumé, it’s critical that board work be highlighted along with board-related activities within functional roles, as well as P&L experience, international experience, industries, organizational revenue, and special skills.  

3. LinkedIn Profile and Presence   

• LinkedIn is the primary go-to resource for professionals ranging from board chairs to recruiters; it’s where they capture a quick glance of a potential candidate, often before a résumé is even requested. 
• Experiences listed in the LinkedIn profile should appropriately mirror the résumé to tell a consistent story.  
• Because most board seats are found via one’s network, it’s critical to “be in the conversation” online as well as in person. LinkedIn affords individuals a chance to regularly develop and uphold their brand by posting on the platform.  
• Sharing thought leadership (one's own or others’) on LinkedIn, commenting on posts, and engaging with other commenters all lend themselves to a presence that feeds an individual’s brand and exposure to business leaders. 

4. Network 

• It’s generally agreed, even among most search professionals, that the most effective way to find a board seat is meaningful, strategic networking.  
• Get curious, and approach people with “I’d love to learn more about . . .”  
• See helpful hints in the NACD Directorship® article, “Demystifying the Path to Board Service.”  
• Leverage a networking tool used by an NACD member who has served on multiple public company boards: Dorlisa Flur’s Magic Matrix.  

Susan Paley is the founder of Bright Spots Coaching. She is an NACD advisor and former vice president of the NACD Chapter Network.  

Insights from the NACD webinar, "Elevate Your Personal Brand and Unlock New Board Opportunities," presented by David Kochanek of BoardVoice.com, were leveraged for the development of this content, as was input from Lauren Smith of Diversified Search Group and Julian Ha of Heidrick & Struggles.