Providing critical friends to CEOs: “The Why, The What and The How...”

The journey of transformation can be challenging, and even with good intentions, efforts often go astray or falter before they can gain momentum. Many companies unintentionally set themselves up for failure. In our experience, the lack of knowledge isn't usually the cause of unsuccessful outcomes. Well-intentioned management teams generally have a grasp of what needs to be done. Our team have led numerous comprehensive and large-scale transformations, and through these experiences, we have identified a series of common pitfalls that undermine success.  
At The Digital Board, we have built up an enviable group of "critical friends" who can help.  They rank (without exception) in amongst some of the most impressive Global Technology leaders of their time.  While they have stepped away from their full time Executive roles, they have taken a deliberate path to pursue a portfolio career.  This may involved traditional NED, they may Chair Tech Advisory Boards for Fortune 5000, FTSE 100 or PE backed companies or sit on the Advisory Boards for some of the most impressive VC backed hyper growth tech firms.
 Regardless, they are still very engaged in the tech space, with impressive experience and deep networks. They can comfortably operate supporting and providing guidance to CEOs, CIO, and the executive on some of these big topics, if appropriate, they can be parachuted into specific situations and help to provide experience, insight, guide problem solving and support remedying burning issues.  
So, how can they help you?   First of all, they can operate as an extended (external) member of your leadership team, brought in on a retainer for either a defined amount of time over the year or on a "pay as you go" approach.   They can perform several key functions to provide effective guidance and support. 

Transform ways of working and the operating model. Agile ways of working enable companies to respond quickly to change. So, helping companies adopt agile is a key pillar of our digital transformation consulting. The can help embed the behaviours and culture that foster cross-functional collaboration, iterative development, and a new approach to learning (one that enables people to adapt and innovate at digital speed). They help you learn how to deploy agile throughout the organization, aligning governance, processes, and organisational structure with a more platform-driven—and less siloed—operating model.

While there isn't a universally defined set of activities , here are five important roles/activities that a "critical friend" can help with:

Specific areas can include:

•	Digital transformation: helping an organisation  strike the right balance between revolution and evolution
•	Support for major business led, IT transformation efforts
•	Strategy: an independent contributor bringing outside in experience or reviewer
•	Innovation: applying wider experience, identifying opportunities, value assessment, prioritising, and sequencing of efforts
•	Modern Technology: evaluating options, strategy & plans for adoption
•	Governance: provide independent guidance and assurance
•	Portfolio prioritisation: feedback on value and delivery approach 
•	Cloud migration: bring broader experience and insight to inform complex migrations and insight into value realisation

If you are interested in finding out more as a client of a Global Technology Leader - click on either link below.

Get in touch

For clients looking to hire a strategic advisor

Apply here to join our advisor network