Crafting Board Profiles for Success: CnetG Asia’s Board Profile Writing Masterclass for Mentees

A well-crafted board resume that clearly shows the value the board aspiring candidate brings to the organisation, increases the chances of an appointment as board director.

With this in mind, twenty participants of the mentees from the Board Mentoring Scheme of the 30% Club Malaysia recently participated in the Board Profile Writing Masterclass, which was organised by CnetG Asia, a key strategic partner of the 30% Club Malaysia.

Raj Kumar Paramanathan, the Managing Partner of CnetG Asia who ran the session single-handedly, brings to the table more than two decades of experience in executive search. 

He shared that a board resume differs from a typical executive resume in that it highlights more of the successes or accomplishments from the angle of corporate governance, strategy, and P&L management.

“The Top 1/3 of the resume is termed as the “prime real estate”, wherein candidates should use this section to describe the expertise and value they bring to the organisation. It is key to provide context and specifics instead of broad statements to highlight their expertise and competencies,” he said.

During the two-hour event, participants learned an interesting angle about gender bias in resumes; Raj Kumar cited that studies have shown that female candidates tend to use collaborative words in their resumes compared to male candidates who use more action verbs.

The session included interactive Q&A discussions as well as specific extracts of participants’ own resumes including demonstrations by Raj Kumar of eye-opening and catching “Before” and “After” effects by applying the techniques as shared during the session.

In the next posting, we will share some of the feedback from the participants about the session and future improvements to the Board Mentoring Scheme.