Viveka Coach Insights Coach Spotlight
Board Readiness Isn't a Resume Exercise. It's a Reframe.
Naomi Kent spent more than two decades around boards of directors. Now she coaches senior professionals into board seats, starting by reversing the instinct nearly every executive walks in with.
Most senior executives walk into their first board conversation ready to talk about themselves. They lead with the titles: CEO, CFO, CMO, VP of Operations. They describe the roles in detail and wait to see if any of it lands.
Naomi Kent, who has spent more than two decades working around boardrooms, first from inside boards of directors and now coaching senior professionals into board seats, says that instinct is exactly backward.
"When people think about a board seat, they often just start to go back into their history of their careers," she explains. "They think, okay, I've been a CEO, let me describe that to you and let's see if it fits with the board seat. You have to do it the other way around."
A board seat is not a bigger executive job
The distinction matters more than it sounds. Board members oversee the CEO, carry fiduciary duty, and answer to shareholders and stakeholders in a way that has almost nothing in common with running a P&L. Kent works from the belief that until a candidate understands that difference, no amount of executive polish will make their pitch land.
That reframe shows up most clearly in how she prepares clients to answer two questions nearly every interview includes: why do you want to be on a board, and tell me about your board experience. She has found that even executives who have already served on boards stumble here, because they default to career language when the room is asking a governance question.
Read the 10-K
Preparation is the other half of her philosophy, and it goes well beyond rehearsing talking points. One client preparing for a public company board interview was told to read the company's 10-K before he walked in, a document most candidates skim at best. He came back a week later having read it cover to cover.
It changed the whole interview for him. He got the board seat.
Naomi Kent
For Kent, the lesson generalizes: understanding the company you want to serve is not optional homework. It is the difference between sounding like a candidate and sounding like a governance partner.
What "network more" actually means
Kent also pushes back on the generic advice most aspiring board members hear first: network more. She has noticed that the phrase means something different to nearly everyone who hears it, from working a conference room to something that feels performative or intimidating. Rather than repeat the advice, she breaks it into something specific and doable, then works with clients one to one because, in her experience, no two paths to a board seat look the same.
Past the first seat
Her latest project extends that same philosophy beyond the first opportunity. She has built a membership for candidates who land a board opportunity and then watch life get in the way of following through, whether that is work, family, or simply momentum fading. It pairs monthly one-on-one time with group sessions, access to governance publications, interview preparation, and support keeping a board bio current, something she notes goes stale within about six months if it is left untouched.
The through-line across all of it is the same reframe she opened with: a board seat is not won by describing what you have already done. It is won by showing a board what you understand about what they need.
Sources and further reading
- What a Form 10-K isU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, investor.gov
- Naomi Kent on VivekaViveka Marketplace
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