A North West tech entrepreneur is creating free “virtual boardrooms” for firms struggling with the coronavirus - and said he’s been inundated with requests.
Ian Wright launched Virtualnonexecs.com last year to help businesses find non-executive directors (NEDs) without paying high recruitment fees.
Mr Wright, 40, has more than 4,000 NEDs on the platform - and said he quickly galvanised the resources he had at his disposal to help companies struggling with the impact of the coronavirus.
He added that at less than an hour’s notice, he recently assembled a panel of NEDs from the platform for a “virtual brainstorm” to offer advice to the boss of a struggling events business that was left “devastated” by the virus.
Mr Wright, who is based in Lancashire and sits on the board of Liverpool-based The Webinar Vet, said: “On Friday morning alone I had no fewer than 10 requests for help and the NEDs on the Virtualnonexecs.com platform jumped at the chance to lend their services for free. It’s about pulling together in their hour of need.
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“We’ve all heard that phrase ‘two heads are better than one’. Well, with Virtualnonexecs.com we have literally 4,000 heads to call on and there’s not much they haven’t come across in their lengthy business careers.
“Because of the warning of social distancing everything is done quickly via technology.”
Michael Mateer, chief marketing officer at Virtualnonexecs.com has been helping coordinate the virtual boardrooms.
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He said it started when he was speaking to a friend at RSM 海角视频, who mentioned a successful events business that had seen its bookings “literally dry up overnight” due to coronavirus.
“I asked the NED community on Virtualnonexecs.com if they could help and within 60 minutes we had a virtual boardroom consisting of lawyer William Blumenthal, cash management expert Anna-Lisa Natchev, business coach Nick Hodson, corporate governance expert Stewart Harper, business buyer, acquisition consultant Stephen Wallis and executive coach Kevin Cunningham on a call offering advice.
“It’s pretty gratifying when the boss of the events business messages you to say what we’ve done is ‘pretty amazing’.
“We’ve got another four more booked in for Monday and I’m getting requests all the time. Coronavirus presents an unprecedented challenge but it seems to bring out the best in people too.”
Mr Mateer said he's currently putting together a virtual summit for SMEs on April 24 entitled 'Survive and Thrive'.
Mr Wright believes that the coronavirus will change the way board meetings are held in future, and added: “The value of the board member is being able to share their expertise and harness the power of their black book of contacts. They don’t need to be sitting in the same room to do that.
“I said when I launched Virtualnonexecs.com that I believed it would change the model in which NED positions are recruited and its peer-to-peer community approach is proving this. It’s a disrupter. What coronavirus has taught us is that the technology is there to do business differently.”