For advisors
Your first board-level role doesn’t have to wait for your first board
This is hard, and it isn’t you
72% of advisory board roles are filled through referrals. Higher up, in 2024, 71% of appointments to ASX 200 and NZX 10 boards went to people who already had public-board experience.
None of that is a test of whether you are good at this. It is a description of how the door opens.
Sources: Advisory Board Centre, 2025–2027 State of the Market Report. Heidrick & Struggles, Board Monitor Australia and New Zealand 2025.
What you get
- Experience that counts. You advise a real company on live decisions. That is the thing every board conversation asks you to evidence, and the hardest thing to get without already having it.
- Matched on what you’ve done, not what you’re called. Your profile leads with specifics. Fifteen years in B2B SaaS revenue. Three regulated-market entries. Founders choose you for the detail.
- Nothing to carry. No vote, no fiduciary duty, no binding authority. You advise, the founder decides, and you take on none of a director’s legal exposure.
- Prep, if you want it. A short readiness program that turns twenty years of doing the work into an offer a founder can understand in one page.
- Other women doing the same thing. You join a group, not a database. Compare notes and get honest feedback on how the advising is going.
Who this is for
You have spent years going deep in one thing. Revenue, operations, regulation, clinical, brand, supply chain, capital, people.
You do not need to have sat on a board already. You do not need a title with the word chief in it. You need something specific that you know cold, and the judgment to know when it applies and when it does not.
What we ask of you
Honesty about your availability, and honesty about how a match is going once it starts.
A place on the bench is not a guarantee of a role. We match against live founder questions, so the fit has to be real on both sides. When we do not have the right question for you yet, we will say so.
Straight answers
- What does an advisor actually do?
- Answer questions, open doors, and tell the truth.
- How much time will it take?
- Agreed with your founder before you start. Most arrangements begin monthly.
- Am I paid?
- Yes, in options in the company you advise. The founder proposes the allocation, you agree it, and the two of you set how it is earned. Signed before the first call. Equity in an early-stage company is illiquid and can end up worth nothing, so go in with your eyes open. How it’s paid.
- Does this lead to a formal board role?
- It builds the experience those conversations ask for. We do not promise appointments and nobody credible can.