Rise in virtual board meetings spur growth for Birmingham start-up BoardSecure

Innovation Birmingham- based start-up BoardSecure launched earlier this year aiming to become as ubiquitous for Board process management and governance as Xero, Quickbooks and FreeAgent are for accounting, and has seen business growth as organisations are seeking to run virtual board meetings in the weeks following lockdown.

BoardSecure, a board management improvement platform targeting small companies and small and medium sized charities.

Founder, Clive Bawden explained: “BoardSecure was originally created to focus on four areas of pain that I’d experienced practically as an SME Director and Charity Trustee myself – how to hold effective board meetings online, manage risk better, improve internal processes and how to broaden the skills around the boardtable.  In other words, how to quickly professionalise the board and make it more accountable for its actions.”

“Since late March, we’ve seen a huge number of enquiries.” continued Bawden.  “Most have started using tools such as Zoom or Teams for holding virtual meetings but are now finding the lack of structure and the lack of process are holding them back.  BoardSecure solves those issues, bringing focus to meetings, making the administrator’s life easier and works easily alongside Zoom, Teams and other major tools.”

“With many pushed for finance due to Covid, we’ve also worked hard to offer a free subscription to qualifying customers for the remainder of 2020 and that is proving particularly popular as people look to get back on their feet and prepare for getting back to work.”  

One of BoardSecure’s new customers is Castel Froma Neuro Care, a small charity based in Warwickshire.  Company secretary Alison Stiles reports, “I found it really easy to get started with BoardSecure and get ready for my board meetings.  It has saved me a lot of time that I can use to focus on other things.”

Founder, Clive Bawden, a former Institute of Directors award winner, is an experienced executive and non-executive director.  He previously held roles within corporate finance at leading boutiques such as Catalyst (now Alantra) and Springboard Corporate Finance, as well as charity and voluntary trustee roles including Trustee for Risk & Finance at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Warwickshire Cricket Board.  Most recently he has become a trustee at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery as well as joining the international governing council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW).