The Bolster Insider

A CCO touches nearly every part of the organization, from sales, to product, to marketing. They are a collaborator, a champion for customers, and a strategic thinker that understands consumer trends and demographics.

Whether the new year has you feeling all the anticipation of a fresh start or you’re one of the many individuals impacted by recent layoffs, it’s time to review your career goals.

Enabling executive development can be the key to retaining executives for the long term and helping them to grow with the company, rather than being out-grown by the company.

The close of the year is an opportunity to reflect—and report—on progress, learnings, and performance. Are you maximizing the value of your end-of-year reflection?

For Bolster, 2022 was a year of continued progress—supporting a growing number of clients, adding transformational executives to our on-demand marketplace, launching new tools and features, and more.

Bolster Partners with Techstars to Transform Early-Stage Startups through Unique Access to Experienced Leaders

Similar to interactions with all CXOs, you’ll have to capitalize on your moments. Here are our tips on how to gain the most value from your CMO.

Your CMO needs the ability to create space in their day for thinking and analysis, they need to be strategic, and they need to be able to stop doing “one more thing.”

Great CMOs have some common characteristics and skills. We're sharing some of the qualities a CMO should embody in order to stand out.

Experienced executives shared their stories and offered perspective and advice on leading—and growing—companies during challenging times.

Hiring an executive is a major commitment for you and your team—you need to get it right. Short term projects can fill a specific need or determine whether an individual will be a good fit for a longer-term role.

Job descriptions are a key element in ensuring you appeal to the right candidates, so it’s important to write them effectively.

Marketing is the key function in building your brand, reaching customers, and increasing engagement. When is it time for a CMO?

Experienced talent executives shared their stories and offered perspective and advice on recruiting and retention for today’s leaders.

Bolster Prime Mentors providing 1:1 coaching through Bolster's partnership with Visible Hands Visionaries Accelerator

A great board is one of a company’s greatest assets. A weak board can kill a company. It’s time to hit the reset button on boards and board meetings.

Crappy execution is a waste startup leaders cannot afford

Recently, Bolster hosted Charlene Wang of LivingOS.org to share her expertise around avoiding burnout and building a joyful, balanced life.

Layoffs are bad, but how you handle them makes all the difference. Here are a few best and worst practices for orchestrating layoffs.

Experienced CEOs shared their stories and offered perspective for today’s leaders.

You want your board to support and buy into the strategy you present to them, but you don’t want them to actually define that strategy.

Make every moment with your CRO count. As a CEO, time with your executives is vital.

Panelists agreed, companies should continue growing and looking ahead, prioritizing thoughtful, data-based decision making.

Check to make sure your CRO is scaling and growing as much as your company.

Over the two-plus decades of working closely with CROs I figured out what “great” looks like and I’ve found that there are five things that great CROs do

We’ve done a lot of work around startup boards at Bolster the past couple of years, including working with over 30 CEOs to help them hire amazing new independent board members.

Over the past several years, there has been a lot of public attention surrounding board diversity

One of the most common questions we’re asked at Bolster is how to help a CEO find a mentor or advisor

6 questions to ask yourself before making the switch to an independent career

Creating strong boards can help propel a board forward. Weak and ineffective boards hold a company back.

Hiring an Interim leader can be a great solution when you have an executive leader leave your organization unexpectedly.

In most startups, the founder is the first salesperson and while it may be difficult to let that go you’ll eventually scale, add sales reps, or maybe some form of a Sales Manager once there are more than a couple of reps.

To better understand the impact of the Great Resignation on C-level executives in the United States, we analyzed the profiles of 5,000+ Bolster members.

One of our Bolster members, Connie Kwan, who runs a popular newsletter Product Maestro, wrote an excellent article last week for her audience about how to work on your elevator pitch when kicking off a fractional career

How to frame your thinking about choosing a mentor whether it’s for business or personal reasons.

For the past six weeks, I’ve been quietly piloting the next chapter in my career that of the fractional executive

While all the functions of a team are needed, perhaps the most critical function to make sure your company is able to scale is the CFO

If you are a CEO who loves to learn, believes that you can learn from someone who has “been there, done that” and wants to not just grow but scale your startup so that you can drive value further, faster, check out Bolster Prime.

We are announcing the launch of a new program called Bolster Prime, and a new venture capital fund called Bolster Ventures, to empower the innovation economy. The roots of Bolster Prime and Bolster Ventures pre-date the founding of Bolster.

Bolster, the marketplace for on-demand executive talent, is excited to announce the launch of Bolster Prime, an 18-month mentoring program, and Bolster Ventures, an early-stage venture fund for Bolster Prime customers.

Is the state of your brand online designed to help you achieve your next professional goal? Most don’t know the answer to this question because they don’t google themselves like they google others. Read on to tap into the critical skills today’s execs need to take control of their online presence.

Bolster, the marketplace for on-demand executive talent, announced today its Series B financing of $11 million to harness the forces driving the future of work for executives and venture-backed startups.

The new year is a great time to take control of your personal brand across all online channels, including your Bolster profile, and this post will get you started. It also gives you access to a special workshop to teach you how to develop a powerful executive presence online.

Speeding up the time to hire can have positive impacts for you, your organization, and the candidate. We offer some tips to help make the hiring process more effective.

Macro conditions around a COVID workforce

A great CFO will spend time learning and steeping themselves in the substance of the business.

Depending on the complexity of your business you might be able to hold off on hiring a full-time CFO, but if you have any of these signs then it’s time to start thinking about bringing someone on board

This series is intended for any C-level executive or board member involved with startups.

As a CEO I learned that the best way to help people grow and develop, and to further develop a better understanding of each other, is to engage with them in a mix of work and non-work settings.

In most startups, one of the founders is the first salesperson — often out of necessity as much as passion. But as startups scale they add sales reps or maybe some form of a Sales Manager once there are more than a couple of reps.