IS YOUR

LINKEDIN

PROFILE

BOARD

READY?

THE E-GUIDE

STRATEGIES FOR

BUILDING A BOARD READY

LINKEDIN PROFILE

GLORY EDOZIEN (PHD)

 INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
Board Appointments are competitive and your digital presence could either
attract or repel potential Board director opportunities. Gone are the days where
you’d simply copy and paste your CV unto your LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn offers you the opportunity to demonstrate both functional and

strategic expertise, thought leadership, relevant accomplishments and attract
a global network, making it the ideal platform for demonstrating Board
readiness- to both a local and international audience.

In this E-guide, I provide 19 strategic tips for demonstrating Board readiness

on various sections of your LinkedIn profile. This guide does not cover how to
create a Linkedin profile from scratch but focuses on key strategies for up-
leveling your current profile to demonstrate Board readiness.

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The LinkedIn Board Readiness Hack You

must know

If you forget everything in this guide, please

remember this.

Strategic tip 1: The key to demonstrating

Board readiness on LinkedIn is to infuse your

Board value proposition (i.e skills and

expertise relevant for the Board room) across

key areas of your profile. To achieve this, go

beyond operational day to day skills and

include expertise that demonstrates strategic

oversight.

According to Borderless, a global executive

search and leadership consulting firm, Board

skills include the following but are not limited

to;

Risk Management
Compliance
Audit Strategy
Diversity
Finance
Government Relations
Capital and Investment
Mergers and Acquisition
Regulatory

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Revenue and Customer Acquisition
Fundraising
Reporting
Negotiation
Six Sigma
Quality Assurance
Board or Advisory/ Board Committee
Change Management
Business Process Improvement
Corporate Governance
Fiduciary Responsibility
Strategic Planning
Ethics
Labour relations
Public Policy
Executive Leadership
Influence
Business Models
Strategic/Crisis Communications
Capital Formation
Critical Thinker
Functional Expertise (IT, HR, Legal,

Sales etc.)
Global or International Leadership
Project Management
Executive Committee
Advocacy

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Strategic tip 2: To build a Board Ready Linkedin Profile you must

understand what your board relevant skills are and then

strategically position them in key sections of your profile

Strategic tip 3: You should also find ingenious ways to mention

these skills a few times i.e. more than once, throughout relevant

areas of your profile. LinkedIn search focuses on skills, so the

more Board relevant skills that appear on your profile, the higher

your chances of coming up in relevant searches.

Section one: Profile Picture

Strategic tip 4: A clear professional digital image is a must have.

Preferably one taken at least within the last 5 years. Your profile

picture is a digital representation of you, so make it count.

Strategic tip 5: Adjust your profile settings to ensure your profile

picture (and profile) is visible to those outside your network.

Many people searching for the skills you have may be outside

your network.

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 Section two: LinkedIn Headline
Strategic tip 6: Push the boat out by including more than just your job
title as your LinkedIn Headline. Your job title, on its own, does not
demonstrate the complexity of skills you can bring to a board. This is a
key section on your profile to display some of the skills mentioned above.

Example one:

Instead of CEO @ WVC Company

Try

Experienced CEO | Leading strategy execution in emerging markets

Example two

Instead of

Chief Compliance Officer and Board Executive

Try…

Corporate governance leader with change management expertise across

finance and FMCG sectors | Experienced Board Executive

Example three

Instead of

Group Head Corporate Strategy | Board executive

Try

Group Head Corporate Strategy | Business Transformation and Strategy

Leader | Board Executive

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Example four

Instead of

Global communications Lead at RTY Company

Try

Global Communications Leader and Crisis Communications expert.

Providing strategic advice on Corporate Reputation and Risk

Example five

Instead of

Founder XTY | Gender and diversity expert

Try

Top 100 women CEOs in Africa | I help organisations identify gaps

and improve gender balance on boards and in leadership roles |

Certified Board Director® (Cert.Dir.®)

With each of these examples, the goal has been to go beyond the

functional job title and succinctly communicate relevant board

expertise.

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Section 3: ‘Talks about’ section

This section appears when you update your LinkedIn Profile to Content Creator
Status. It appears with hashtags under the LinkedIn Headline

Strategic tip 7: Use this section to share the thought leadership areas you’d like
to be known for, paying specific attention to your Board relevant skills and
expertise i.e. #corporategovernance #riskmanagement #strategicplanning
#Crisiscommunications

Section 4: Features section

Strategic tip 8: Here include key press clippings, videos, speaking engagement
flyers, linkedin articles or posts where you demonstrate thought leadership.
This could be an interview piece in an industry relevant magazine, an
appearance on the local news or a post where you shared your appointment on
an existing board. Either way, it should be aligned with the skills you mentioned
in the preceding sections.

Section 5: About Section

Strategic tip 9: The goal in this section is to demonstrate via powerful

examples and achievements the skills you have mentioned in the previous
sections.
For example if in your LinkedIn Headline section you included board advisor:
your About section should provide details of that position; such as

“In her role as board advisor for XYG, Tinuke has provided advice on a range
of confidential matters from dealing with activist investors to pre-IPO
governance. She was also the Co-Chair of x,y and g Working Group from
2014-2018.”
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Similarly if your goal is to demonstrate business transformation and

strategic skills your bio may include the following paragraph

“Under Bidemi’s leadership, KNG has grown from an unknown product to

one of the fastest growing consumer brands in the last 8 months, as

evidenced by a growth of 68% in sales.”

In addition, should you wish to demonstrate leadership skills a sentence

such as

“In her current role, Bola has oversight of the company’s investment and

private wealth management business consisting of 3 Divisions and 7

multi and cross functional sub-teams. Her focus here is to leverage her

extensive experience leading teams and adeptly harnessing the diverse

talents of 56 Staff in the division.”

Finally, including a subsection which includes 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 &

𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 such as the below could be the cherry on the top

For example
𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 & 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

◾️CRS TOP 100 women in cyber security in Africa

◾️LinkedIn Top Voices in Africa, 2022
◾️Business Day Woman of the year award
◾️P&L responsibility grew from under $2m in 2007 to approximately

$500m in 2015 and counting

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◾️Currently overseeing the largest and fastest growing consumer
segment in Nigeria and 2nd in West Africa with a transaction value in
millions of dollars annually
◾️Championed the TUC Power sector campaign and other Gas to
power initiatives including the xxx and NBTC Schemes in excess of $4
billion.
◾️Regularly writes thought leadership pieces in Punch and other
relevant industry magazines

The goal in this section is to provide examples and proof of your

expertise. This is a key space to embed various Board specific skills
and the accomplishments which showcase your expertise. But don't go
overboard. Focus on the key skills you want to be known for.

Strategic tip 10: Don't forget to include any volunteer or community

service experience. This could include membership of church,
fundraising groups and even Parents Teacher Committees as this
could add to your Board value proposition.

Section 6: Experience

Strategic tip 11: Go beyond names of employers, dates of employment

and job titles to include 2-3 bullet points of accomplishments in each
role that demonstrate your Board ready skills. The trick here again is to
align the accomplishments and responsibilities mentioned with the
board level expertise you’d like to showcase.

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Section 7: Education and certification

Strategic tip 12: Continuous professional

development is important and this is your

chance to highlight any Board ready and/or

high level industry relevant certifications you

have. Attended any Institute of Directors

training sessions or executive skills training?

Add them here.

Section 8: Skills and endorsements

LinkedIn allows you to select up to 50 skills

which fall mostly under industry knowledge

and interpersonal skills.

Strategic tip 13: Aim to select a good

representation of board relevant as well as

industry relevant skills that apply to you with

a good measure of interpersonal skills too.

Strategic tip 14: Build your endorsements by

asking members of your network who are

intimately aware of your expertise and are

either on Boards themselves or have strong

standing/are highly regarded in your industry

to endorse selected skills.

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Section 9: Recommendations

Strategic tip 15: Recommendations from

other board members, industry experts and

thought leaders in your sector helps to

demonstrate industry recognition,

acceptance and acknowledgement of your

expertise. Plus whatever recommendations

they give also features on their profile too

which could lead to you being discovered

during potential Board candidate searches.

Sections 10: Other sections-

Projects, Volunteer, Publications,

Awards

Strategic tip 16: Although typically ignored

on many LinkedIn profiles, these sections

offer the opportunity to provide a bit more

detail into thought leadership offerings,

where they exist. It also provides

opportunities to include skills and expertise

areas that promote the optimization of your

page and promote its possibility in appearing

on relevant Board candidate searches.

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Beyond your LinkedIn profile page

Strategic tip 17: Avoid the mistake of having a great linkedin profile and then

going to sleep. This is like a baker opening a great bakery with lovely tasting

coffee but doesn’t make any effort to tell people the store exists and instead

relies on the smell of the coffee to drag customers in. Just like the baker would

need to market the existence of their great store, so would you. To market

your newly improved Board Ready Linkedin Profile you’ll need to network and

create content.

Strategic tip 18: Build a networking strategy that allows you to both connect

with and attract connection requests from Board members on Linkedin, locally

and internationally.

Strategic tip 19: Build a content strategy which helps you create content that

demonstrates your expertise and attracts the attention of Board members and

recruiters.

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 ABOUT ME

Glory Edozien(PhD)
LinkedIn Visibility and Thought

Leadership Expert
Glory is a thought leadership branding expert and LinkedIn visibility coach

for female executives across Africa. Her mission is to help high achieving

women of African descent, find their voice, build powerful thought

leadership brands and establish global visibility.

Glory's training and consulting clients include MTN, Nigeria Deposit

Insurance Corporation, Schneider Electric, Access Bank, Sterling Bank,

Shell Nigeria, AIICO Insurance, Jobberman, to mention a few. Her

personal coaching clients also include mid-senior level executives in

companies such as Shell, SAP, ECO Bank, Unilever, The British Council,

Sterling Bank, BBC, IBM and a combination of NGOs and government

establishments.

Her clients have received Board appointments, commendations in their

careers, been featured on premium media channels such as CNN, named

LinkedIn Top Voices and head hunted for global opportunities, launched

career mentorship platforms and received clarity on their professional

thought leadership brands.

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 ABOUT ME

Glory is an alumni of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers and has
been listed as one of Nigeria’s 100 Most Inspiring Women and was
nominated for both the 2020 African LinkedIn Influencer Award and the
2021 Pulse LinkedIn Influencer Award. In 2022, she was named by
LinkedIn as a top voice in Africa and was also named one of the top 50
Women in Management in Africa.

Glory holds a PhD in Real Estate and Planning from the University of
Reading, UK and is a Certified Expert in climate change and renewable
energy finance.

CLICK TO CONNECT WITH ME

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