Virtual board meetings increase the efficiency and productivity of managers — but only when the workflow, the documents and the software behind them are handled deliberately.
Which Boardroom collects practical guidance for corporate secretaries, executive directors and managers who run board operations: how to keep virtual sessions productive, how data rooms fit into document handling, how resolutions are written, and how the secretary role works day to day.
Read the meeting guide
Technical issues, less engagement and other interruptions can turn a virtual session into time waste. A guide to the factors that reduce efficiency and the techniques that protect productivity.
Rules and functions for drafting a resolution — performer, order, date and signature — plus appointment and function resolutions.
Both programs deserve attention and have extensive functionality. A feature-by-feature look for executive directors and corporate secretaries.
Key duties of the corporate manager, the role in board operations and documentation, and why the position matters in corporate governance.
A protected method for storing and sharing data, used for due diligence, M&A and more — with a checklist for picking a VDR.
BoardMaps suits the board of a commercial company and is convenient for executive directors and corporate secretaries. Boardable converts paper into electronic form, freeing physical space and reducing the cost of copying, shipping and handling documents — and the volume of irretrievably lost documents.
Modern workflow depends on technology that team members can actually use. A secure data room supports flexible, remote working, helps protect sensitive information against unauthorised access, and gives leaders analytics and control over workflow processes.
A checklist for evaluating virtual data room functionality and interface, with notes on providers such as ForData and RR Donnelley.
Factors that interrupt a virtual session — technical issues and reduced engagement — and the techniques that keep an online board productive.
A resolution is a short directive that records a leadership decision. Its structure — performer, order, date, signature — and its administrative significance.
Duties of the corporate manager, board operations and documentation, and the position's importance within corporate governance.
| Topic | What the guide covers | Published |
|---|---|---|
| Virtual board meetings | Pitfalls that reduce efficiency and strategies to maintain it | September 21, 2024 |
| Virtual data rooms | Definition, use cases, and a provider checklist including ForData and RR Donnelley | September 17, 2022 |
| Secure workflow | Secure file storage, workflow analytics and control for business deals | November 27, 2022 |
| Board resolutions | Design rules, appointment and function resolutions, formatting | February 17, 2022 |
| Software comparison | BoardMaps and Boardable functionality and benefits | February 17, 2022 |
| Corporate secretary | Duties, documentation and governance responsibilities | February 17, 2022 |
Editorial notes on privacy, cookies, comment data and retention periods are collected on the Legal page.
Virtual board meetings have moved from optional novelty to standard practice in corporate governance, and the reasons go well beyond convenience. When directors can attend from different offices, cities or time zones, the cost of assembling a quorum in one physical room drops dramatically. Shorter travel days mean more preparation time before and after a session. Scheduling becomes easier to repeat, calendars fill more predictably, and members who once skipped in-person gatherings because of conflicting travel now participate with far less friction. The result is a board that convenes more often, deliberates more consistently and maintains a sharper grip on the company's priorities between formal meeting cycles.
Choosing software for online board meetings is rarely a matter of picking the most feature-rich product on the market. Directors are busy people, and the platform must be immediately understandable to someone who logs in twice a year. A clear agenda, visible join controls, one-click screen sharing and simple audio muting matter more than elaborate virtual room decoration. Equally important is how documents behave: can a member download a packet, annotate a resolution or rejoin a session from a different device? Board-ready platforms treat these ordinary interactions as the product itself rather than an afterthought, and the best of them feel unremarkable once the meeting begins.
Virtual data rooms sit at the centre of modern board administration, where sensitive material must circulate without being scattered across inboxes and personal drives. A properly configured room gives every authorized participant the same view of the same papers, with permission levels that distinguish who may read, who may comment and who may download. Because directors often review materials asynchronously, the ability to record questions against a specific document changes how a meeting actually runs: the live session shifts from reading aloud to genuine discussion. Secure sharing, watermarking and expiry rules also reduce the anxiety that usually accompanies distributing confidential board papers.
The role of the corporate secretary has been reshaped by the shift to virtual and hybrid board operations. Where the job once centred on logistics — printing binders, arranging rooms, catering lunch — it now centres on information discipline: maintaining the record, circulating papers on schedule, tracking which resolutions have been drafted and which still need a formal vote, and ensuring minutes accurately reflect debate. The secretary becomes the guardian of a documented trail, and the tooling they choose determines how much of that work happens automatically and how much still depends on memory and manual effort.
Written resolutions give boards a practical alternative to convening for decisions that cannot wait for the next scheduled meeting. The format is straightforward, but the craft lies in precision: a resolution should state the action clearly, reference the supporting document, name the approving body and carry an effective date. When resolutions are drafted well, they become part of the permanent governance record rather than an awkward side note. Poorly drafted resolutions invite ambiguity, and ambiguity in a formal decision is the kind of problem that surfaces months later during a review, an audit or a dispute.
Technical difficulties are the most commonly cited failure point of virtual board meetings, yet most are preventable through rehearsal and simple policy. Directors should be asked to test microphones, cameras and connections a few days before a session, and hosts should keep a telephone bridge in reserve as a fallback. Presentations that rely on screen sharing alone can stall, so distributing papers in advance matters. It also helps to agree on etiquette: cameras on for discussion, muted when not speaking, and interruptions handled in a predictable way so the chair can keep the conversation moving without sounding authoritarian.
Engagement is the second great challenge of running a board online, and it requires deliberate facilitation rather than passive attendance. Long silences, unanswered chat messages and directors multitasking through a shared screen are all warning signs. Good practice is to circulate pre-reading early, use the agenda to signal which items need discussion and which are merely for noting, and to bring people into the conversation by name when their expertise is relevant. Short focused segments broken by brief breaks often outperform a single marathon session, particularly for older or less tech-confident members of the board.
Virtual meeting software should be judged against the realities of board administration rather than the demonstrations given by vendors. Key questions include whether agendas, minutes and action items can be exported in a usable format, whether the platform supports legal or regulatory record-keeping requirements, and how administrators manage access when directors rotate off the board. Audio and video quality, ease of use for occasional participants, and the reliability of the provider's support line all carry more weight than novelty features. Comparisons that ignore workflow fit tend to favour tools that look impressive but frustrate the secretary who must run them repeatedly.
Legal and compliance considerations sit behind every decision to move a board meeting online. Directors owe duties to the company, and the meeting record must demonstrate that those duties were discharged. Regulators, auditors and insurers may each hold slightly different expectations about documentation, notice and quorum, so boards should confirm their own jurisdictional requirements before settling on a permanent format. A written governance policy that describes when meetings are held virtually, how papers are distributed and how minutes are approved gives the board a defensible framework and removes the need to renegotiate the rules each time a meeting approaches.
Maintaining a healthy balance between digital convenience and effective deliberation is an ongoing responsibility for any board that has adopted virtual practices. Technology should support the meeting rather than become the meeting. Boards that succeed keep a modest face-to-face calendar for the discussions that genuinely benefit from it, use virtual sessions for updates, reviews and routine approvals, and resist the temptation to pack every agenda item into a video call. The underlying aim is unchanged by format: relevant information, prepared participants, clear decisions and a reliable record. Tooling serves that aim, and nothing more.