Building out your Personal Advisory Board

To identify the right specialists for your personal board, first conduct a rigorous self-assessment to map your specific needs against the expertise currently missing from your network. This process involves analyzing your business goals and personal weaknesses to ensure you select members who can address your specific “blind spots” rather than simply reinforcing your existing views.

Step 1: Audit Your Gaps and Define Roles You should view your board composition as a strategic exercise, selecting individuals who “know more than you about something, are better than you at something, or offer different points of view”. Rather than relying on friends, you must identify specific archetypes that counterbalance your natural tendencies:

• The Industry Veteran: Find a mentor who has successfully built a business in your specific sector to help you navigate nuances and avoid “years of mistakes”.

• The Challenger: Seek out someone who is ready to critique your decisions and provide unfiltered feedback, as opposed to a “cheerleader” who only validates you.

• The Functional Expert: Identify specialists for technical gaps; for example, a financial expert for economic questions, a “bad news” specialist to help with difficult communications, or a researcher who tracks the latest theory in your field.

• The Generational Counterpart: To ensure a breadth of perspective, identify one person from a generation older than you for wisdom and one from a generation younger for fresh perspectives and technological insight.

Step 2: Diversify Your Network A common mistake is building a network of people who think like you or work in your immediate unit, which reinforces bias. To identify the right specialists, you should employ a “diversify and capitalize” strategy:

• Look for “Energizers”: Prioritize individuals who create opportunities and are trustworthy; avoid “de-energizers” who drain your enthusiasm or focus on obstacles.

• Seek Remote or “Invisible” Mentors: If you cannot find the right specialist locally, look for “remote mentors” outside your organization who can offer objective distance. You can even utilize “invisible mentors”—authors or thinkers whose work you study deeply—to fill gaps where personal contact isn’t possible.

• The Connector: Include someone specifically chosen for their ability to introduce you to others in your profession or community, expanding your reach.

Step 3: Leverage Virtual and AI Perspectives If you cannot access world-class human experts for every role, use a platform like Stratis that will analyze your background and create personas to help respond to your needs.  Tools like this are especially helpful to provide Cognitive Diversity. This allows you to identify and simulate perspectives from across history and disciplines—philosophers, strategists, and scientists—that would be impossible to assemble in a real-world room.

Step 4: Operationalize the Selection When narrowing down your list, ensure the people you select are willing to provide their true opinions rather than just making you feel good. The goal is to create a “hybrid brain trust” where real human advisers provide emotional intelligence and context, while tools like Stratis give you the platform to test ideas 24/7, engage with broad and diverse expertise, and draw out the best of your solutions.