How To Make The Shift From Tech Executive To Board Director
Dr. Greg Ombach, CEO-Level Deep-Tech Operator & Board Member, Senior Vice President at Airbus.
gettyAfter years in executive roles, I naturally start thinking about the solution when I understand a technical or business problem. My natural instinct is to assess what needs to change, identify the missing resources and move forward.
Serving on a board of directors has required a closer look at when that instinct helps and when it gets in the way.
During deep-tech scale-ups, the temptation to intervene can be strong. A technical delay can affect financing and customer commitments while a small management team is already stretched. An experienced director may recognize the problem quickly and see a possible solution. But once that director starts directing the work, the CEO’s responsibility becomes less clear.
One of the biggest challenges facing directors supporting the move from technology development to a growing business is learning to contribute without becoming another person running it.
Directors need to look beyond lab test results and successful demonstrations. They must understand what it will take to turn the technology into a reliable solution customers will buy and use, whether it is software, hardware or a combination of both. A working prototype is an important step. Making it work reliably for customers, at a price they will accept, requires much more.
Operating experience helps a director examine this gap. In a scale-up, the next stage may require capabilities that the company has yet to build. Does the technical result justify moving forward? What work remains? Who can deliver it? Can the company fund it? These questions bring technical progress into the same discussion as commercialization and financing.
A further question is whether the proposed work supports a clear business choice. Better technical performance matters when it gives customers a reason to buy, reduces costs or lets the company serve more customers. Directors should understand which of these management is pursuing and what capabilities are needed. This keeps the discussion focused on the business case, the importance of which I’ve written about previously, rather than letting technical progress become an objective in itself.
In my own board work, difficult circumstances led to more frequent meetings and more detailed technical discussions. Diagnosing problems and suggesting actions seemed useful, but sometimes pulled me toward execution.
Giving management room to explain its recommendation before offering a solution is crucial. Examining the assumptions and evidence made it easier to identify where further challenge was needed, rather than moving straight to an answer.
If a recommendation is incomplete or unconvincing, the board should say so and explain what is missing. Directors still have to exercise judgement and make decisions. Asking questions does not remove that responsibility.
A recovery plan is a useful example. An experienced executive may immediately consider how to organize the work. The non-executive director’s responsibility is to assess whether management’s approach addresses the problem and whether the team has the resources to carry it out.
The purpose of the discussion should also be clear from the start. Is management asking for advice, seeking approval or reporting progress against an earlier decision? Each calls for a different contribution from directors. Without that distinction, a technical update can turn into a working session where board members start assigning operational tasks. Agreeing what the board must decide helps everyone understand where its involvement should end.
This can require detailed discussion. Questioning whether a testing program provides enough evidence helps the board judge whether the company is ready to proceed. Choosing how the team should run the tests, allocating work or directing advisors puts the director in an operational role. Reviewing the plan independently also becomes harder when a board member has helped direct it.
The wording of a question matters, too. A question that includes a preferred solution can sound like an instruction. Management needs to understand whether a director is asking for information, offering an idea or expressing a judgement on the recommendation.
Finally, each discussion should end with a clear agreement on what management will do, who is responsible and when the board will review progress, as I’ve broken down in another earlier article. In my own board work, I learned that staying out of execution was not enough. These expectations also had to be made explicit.
Based on my experience, this simple question deserves more attention: What help does the CEO need from the board?
In some situations, I’ve found I hadn’t asked this question consistently enough. Advice, an introduction or an approval may be more useful than another proposed solution. Asking gives the CEO a chance to identify where a director can contribute, rather than leaving the board to assume what would help.
Sometimes urgency or limited management capacity may require a director to take on additional work. The board should agree what that person is being asked to do, what authority they have and how long the arrangement will last. Management and relevant advisors should understand it, too. Otherwise, temporary help can become an informal executive role without anyone having deliberately agreed to it.
This change also requires attention after the meeting. A director can review which contributions clarified the issue and which became instructions. CEO feedback can help: Did the discussion strengthen management’s recommendation, or did it leave uncertainty about who was in charge? Understanding the boundary in principle is easier than respecting it consistently under pressure.
Before intervening, ask three questions: Is this a board issue? Am I improving the decision or taking over the solution? Who should own the next action?
The urge to act remains strong when an answer seems clear. Deep-tech scale-ups need directors who can connect technical evidence with commercial judgement and financing needs. That experience is most useful when it helps the board make sound decisions and gives the CEO clear expectations and practical support as the business grows.
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