The end of beer-and-pizza boards

Every growing company reaches a point where experience alone is no longer enough. The questions become bigger, the risks sharper and the opportunities more complex. For some organisations, that’s when governance structures evolve. For others, it’s when they look sideways, to an advisory board. 

Advisory boards are often associated with early-stage ventures. Henry Lynch CMInstD, founder of Faraday, says that perception is misplaced. 

“In our experience, it’s just not startups,” he says. “We’ve helped about 500 companies set up advisory boards in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. The majority are established companies.” 

Craig Hattle CMInstD, who has worked with the Institute of Directors on advisory board practice, says that shift reflects a more deliberate use of advisory boards. 

“They are not a halfway house between no board and a ‘real’ board,” he says. “They are a governance mechanism in their own right – designed to improve decision quality while leaving accountability with owners and executives.” 

For many of those businesses, the attraction is not informality, but focus. 

“It’s about having that authority and control resting with the owners, owner managers,” Lynch says. “But more importantly, it’s about growth and innovation.” 

Lynch frequently describes advisory boards as “the board you always wanted, not the board you were told to have”. But he is equally clear about what they are not. 

“I call them beer or pizza boards,” he says, recalling the early days when some business owners would gather a few mates around the table, without structure, agenda or accountability. 

That model, he argues, has had its day. 

Discipline before appointment 

Today’s advisory boards are deliberately structured and commercially disciplined. But that discipline begins before anyone takes a seat at the table. 

Too often, Lynch says, businesses rush to appoint advisors without first interrogating their own strategy and foundations. The result is a board assembled around personalities rather than purpose. 

“In a lot of cases, businesses don’t know good strategy and good business models,” he says.  

Hattle agrees but frames the issue more simply. 

“The question is not whether an advisory board looks like a governance board,” he says. “It’s whether it behaves with discipline – clear purpose, clear boundaries, quality information and the courage to challenge.” 

Before forming an advisory board, owners need clarity on where they will play, how they will win and what “big moves” are required.  Only then does the question of who should be at the table become clear. 

“From that, you know who you need on that board,” Lynch says. 

That same discipline also helps determine whether an advisory board is needed at all. 

“Start with the decision system you already have,” Hattle says. “If the issue is accountability, you may need a governance board. If it’s decision quality, an advisory board may be the right mechanism. Sometimes the answer is simply better management rhythm.” 

Air traffic controllers, not pilots 

The difference between governance and advisory boards lies less in seriousness than in authority. 

On a governance board, Lynch says, “it’s command and control – you can tell me what to do and I’ve got to go away and do it”. By contrast, advisory boards demand a different skillset.  “It’s not for everyone because it requires more work.” 

He likens the advisory chair’s role to “being an air traffic controller rather than the pilot of the business”.   

Hattle describes the same boundary in more operational terms. 

“Management decides and executes,” he says. “The advisory board tests assumptions, surfaces risk and widens options. It adds value when it lifts the quality of questions – not when it drifts into management.” 

That shift changes the tone of meetings. The focus is forward. 

“Under our model, it’s what next and why not,” Lynch says. 

Accountability changes the game 

For many founders, that shift can be confronting. 

“What we’ve found is that it’s the first time these business owners have had somebody holding them accountable,” Lynch says.  

Hattle points to clear trigger points for when that accountability becomes necessary. 

“I tend to see two trigger groups: pull and push,” he says. “Pull is where growth demands better questions. Push is where risk or complexity starts pushing back – succession, capital, regulation or key-person dependency.” 

“Move too early and you create unnecessary complexity. Move too late and the critical decisions have already been made.”  

Problem understanders and solvers 

For Lynch, whether governance or advisory, the purpose of any board is straightforward. 

“Boards are problem understanders and solvers.” 

Hattle sharpens where advisory boards are most useful. 

“They work best where bias is present, where ethical boundaries matter and where decisions need to be tested against quality information,” he says. “They are less suited to operational calls. That’s where you risk shadow directing.” 

Applied properly, that capability can materially change a company’s trajectory. 

“If you’re not driving economic mobility for the business, there’s no point,” Lynch says. 

From informality to maturity 

“I call them beer or pizza boards,” Lynch says, recalling the early days of informal, unstructured advice. 

Hattle reframes that shift. 

“It’s less a rejection of informality and more a move to maturity,” he says. “Structure, cadence and an explicit commitment to better decision making.” 

Advisory boards, Lynch argues, have grown up. They are no longer informal sounding boards but structured, commercially engaged partners in growth. 

For organisations prepared to embrace that discipline – and the accountability that comes with it – the returns can be transformative. 

For those seeking growth, the beer-and-pizza era has passed.