Checklist: Board presentation preparation
Effectively communicating financial results to your board starts with preparation. Here’s a to-do checklist from this year’s Summit Elevate.
Prior to Summit Elevate, our invitation-only event for healthcare CFOs and senior-level leadership held April 23-25 at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay in Tampa, Florida, I wrote about seven ways CFOs can more effectively communicate with their boards.
I’m following up that article with a detailed checklist of how you, as a healthcare CFO or senior finance leader at your organization, can prepare for presenting financial information to your board. I curated the checklist from my presentation at Summit Elevate. Mike Coggin, the former CFO at Lifepoint Health and current Kodiak board member, was my co-presenter at our hour-long session.
I’ve organized the checklist into four critical communication areas:
- Develop a strong relationship with individual board members
- Understand points and frequency of communication
- Demonstrate technical acumen
- Deliver an effective presentation
Here’s the checklist
You can download in PDF format here.
Develop a strong relationship with individual board members
- Transparency: Proactively share relevant updates—wins and challenges—to build trust and demonstrate accountability. Remember, it’s important to be yourself. Know what you know. Know what you don’t know.
- Strategic communication: Align your messaging with the board’s priorities by framing decisions and progress in the context of long-term value and organizational goals. Engage board members as strategic partners, not just overseers, by seeking their input on major initiatives and being responsive to their feedback.
- Mutual respect: Consistently show up prepared. Respect their time. Build a rapport with individual board members where appropriate to foster stronger, more personal connections. Ultimately, treating the board as an ally rather than an audience cultivates a collaborative dynamic that drives stronger governance and better business outcomes.
Understand points and frequency of communication
Required communications include:
- Audit findings or adverse opinions
