The benefit comes with the owner-manager's courage to be measured and weighed, and not least the willingness to exploit the improvement opportunities identified by the maturity index - this is evidenced by 3 practical Leadmore® cases. "The process with IDDAS and Leadmore® was an eye-opener and gives the executive board and the board a new...

In collaboration with IDDAS, Leadmore® offers tailor-made courses where we together develop solutions for how the company can strengthen its maturity and raise the company's value. The courses are based on IDDAS' SME maturity tool, which provides a status report - a due diligence that shows the company's maturity based on the ISO 17029 standard. A ...

I am happy to share that I have graduated as an Authorized Associate in IDDAS and Verifier for The SMETOOL and maturity scoring based on the ISO 17029 standard. Through our newly developed online tool, we give you an accurate insight into your company's challenges and answer how developed and resilient your company is.  Together we r...

The summer holidays are coming to an end soon, so the time is coming to warm up for a new board season. On the back of the Corona, many talk about "new normal". After the stranglehold of the restrictions, the hardest-hit industries have not yet found their feet - so it is probably too early to say with certainty what the future will bring and what ...

How does the owner-manager get the best out of his professional board?  Thorough, open and honest alignment of expectations creates the most value. The maximal benefit of a professional board stands and falls with the owner manager's willingness to let go of control, and the ability to set the right board team - both in terms of industry exper...

The Danish Competitiveness Council strives to help Denmark stay relevant in the future global competitive business environment. As part of their work, they invited business leaders to share their perspectives on the topic, i.e. what should Denmark do going forward to achieve an excellent business position in this arena? What is our moonshot project...

It is now 1 year ago I launched Leadmore ®. Through the year I have supported clients creating progress and performance improvements within the 5 main services areas:

• Value-adding leadership
• Strategy and business models
• Mentor support and coaching
• Strategic B2B sales
• Board work

The experience base has been increased and can benefit others. External inspiration and sparring is often the strongest driver of change and value growth.

Press release November 8, 2012

Kohberg offensive

Kohberg aims to be the customers’ preferred supplier of bread, no matter where they buy or enjoy it. To achieve this, Kohberg merges all in all 4 companies into one strong company and assigns a new CEO who knows the industry in depth and has a proven track record.

In Denmark, it is mandatory to establish a board of directors for all limited companies as well as limited liability companies, which for more than three years have had more than 35 employees. Out of Denmark’s approximately 80.000 limited liability companies only 1.000 need to comply, however the actual number having a board is around 12.000 – this indicates that many founders and owners of midsized and smaller companies have acknowledged the value of voluntarily establishing a professional board.

JO Informatik is an example from my own board portfolio – a small Danish software company that designs and develops digital archives and software for digital administration. Three years ago, the founder and CEO Jesper Olsen decided to establish a professional board of directors and since then the value creation has accelerated significantly. Revenue has grown 66% over the last two years, a negative result has turned positive and the company consistently executes on the strategy, which recently has paved the way for an entry into the Norwegian market.

I would like to share some selected highlights from an article on JO Informatik’s experiences:

I have previously focused on the trend of board professionalization and competent teams. Recently, I read a really good book on the subject, which I would like to tip you about. Lars Bo Hansen and Steen Ernland have written "The Active Board", which focuses on how the board can develop the business and create competitiveness. 

The book’s 250 pages are easily read, but it does certainly not make it worse. It is at eye level and catches the reader with concrete punchlines - a book that you do not easily leave on the bookshelf.

No longer only about management - leadership will make the difference 

The book points out new guidelines for the modus operandi of the board. Without slackening control, more focus must not surprisingly be forward-looking, which puts greater demand on the board leadership itself. It is no longer only a question of management with focus on plans, control and doing the right things. Now leadership it is evenly important to ensure execution and that right things are done right. The book provides concrete input for the board composition based on both individual professional skills and collaborative skills relating to the team in question. A steady stream of real life examples are turned into checklists for the board’s own reflections, and not least its self-evaluation.

Results are created by the teams we lead, but many managers experience that it can be hard to make the great plans actually happen. As a corporate leader myself, I have experienced how you can be trapped in the treadmill of KPI-management and new plans, when the first plan hasn’t shown the expected results – thus, why I could not find adequate time to perform my leadership role. Whilst owner-managers typically aren’t burdened by corporate treadmills, they are up to their eyes in daily hands-on tasks and firefighting. In both cases an active board could play a decisive role in unfolding involving and value-adding leadership.

Private equity governance has for years set the route for management professionalization with industrial advisors on their board teams. As any other business, they however also from time to time experience that even the best plans fail due to lack of execution skills for which leadership is key. Thus, a leadership advisor approach may be maturing as a supplement to their classical industry advisor approach – what do you think?

Clear trend on board professionalization and competent teams

Private equity funds have long been at the forefront when it comes to professionalization and composition of board teams based on business challenges and competence needs, rather than classical networking relationships. With a typical exit horizon of 4-7 years and clear ambitions to maximize value creation during the ownership period, it has been natural to introduce new management paradigms from top to bottom of the management systems.

The employees create value through the customers, but skilled owner-managers nevertheless find it difficult to get the good plans to actually take place. They are often buried in daily hands-on chores. Here, an active and professional board with wide leadership experience can provide a competency allowance for redemption of employees' full potential - even at reasonable prices. 

Private equity funds have long been at the forefront when it comes to professionalization and composition of board teams based on business challenges and competence needs, rather than classical networking relationships. 

With a typical exit horizon at 4-7 years and clear ambitions to maximize value creation during the ownership period, it has been natural to introduce new management paradigms from top to bottom of the management systems.

Need for speed and skills

Examples of this are, when private equity funds already during the acquisition process have made extensive fact analysis, so they up front can set the right board and management team to execute the strategic and operational tasks as defined for the ownership period. Or they turn from comparing oneself with the nearest competitors to world class benchmarking, and long democratic decision making processes are replaced by short fact based decision making processes. Last but not least, their ability to handle large amounts of complexity under very tight deadlines.

With the right competencies on the board team, it is also natural and moreover fruitful, that boards engage more closely in management sparring and business development projects - of course with due regard to the principles and recommendations for good corporate governance.

During some years now, there has been significantly increased focus and activity level on board member recruitments, educations and networks. One might almost say that a "board market" has emerged. It is of course positive with the establishment of an "eco-system" for stimulation of value creation in Danish board rooms and thus also the competitiveness of the Danish economy. 

However, I have also noted that the market place naturally has led to a continuous flow of creative business models, where companies build on profit based network activities and board educations. 

Competition is strong with no shortage of cold canvassing with varying quality and different price offers for the same product from the same provider – some even offer education with a guaranteed board seat upon completion. I am not saying that the market lacks quality educations and networks, but transparency is yet low as to quality and price, and thus value for money.