We were delighted to kick start our November events programme with Dr Natalia Blagburn on 4 November with our webinar Venture Board Effectiveness: the relationship between boards and venture growth. With a background in venture capital and management consulting, Natalia is currently working with Newcastle Business School where she coaches teams of student entrepreneurs and mentors startup founders whilst teaching starting up, growing and closing ventures. Her work is at the coal-face of entrepreneurship, encouraging and challenging young leaders who are making their way with their businesses. She is a Vice-Chair of the regional branch of the Institute of Directors and has a broad board experience, including non-profit, commercial and venture non-exec roles.

Having experienced first-hand how early boards can help propel startups to growth, Natalia has been researching venture boards ever since. In particular, she focuses on understanding the complex interplay between the performance of early ventures and directors’ skills, experiences, behaviours, as well as board purpose, systems and processes.

Having recently completed her doctorate on this topic, she is now on a mission to share what she has learnt from her research, and to help founders get the most out of their investor boards.

Natalia talked to our Venture Relations Manager, Megan Snijman, and delved into many aspects including the mismatch of founder-board expectations, differences between a public company board and venture board, how to make a board fit for purpose in terms of structure, what the focus should be, the implications of an ineffective venture board, conflicts of interest, and the unicorn governance dilemma.