Aisha, CEO of Solstice Health (Series B, 45 employees), reduced her board prep from eight hours to under two by assigning a dedicated Executive Assistant to the task. This post explains the exact processes, tools, and metrics founders and COOs should use when they hire a Virtual Assistant Services resource specifically for board meeting preparation.
A dedicated VA centralizes administrative support for board meetings: scheduling, deck consolidation, materials distribution, and stakeholder follow-up. Rather than treating meeting prep as ad-hoc Administrative Support, a VA who focuses on board cycles becomes a growth multiplier—freeing founders to shape strategy while ensuring every version, permission, and signature is accounted for.
Founders who treat board prep as repeatable work see predictable gains: our clients report a 60% reduction in executive time spent on meeting logistics and a 30% faster turnaround on board deliverables when a dedicated VA owns the cadence.
MySigrid’s BoardReady Workflow codifies board meeting tasks into four clear stages—Intake, Assemble, Secure, and Follow-up—backed by our Continuity Ledger and SigridSync handoff protocol. The Intake stage captures agenda items, conflicts, and document requirements in a single Notion template; Assemble builds the deck using Google Slides and DocSend versioning; Secure enforces access via SOC 2 policies, MFA, and encrypted storage; Follow-up logs action items into Asana or Jira and reports outcomes.
Using the BoardReady Workflow, Tom, COO at Gridly Logistics (120 employees), cut last-minute deck edits by 85% and reduced post-meeting action leakage to under 5% within three board cycles.
Each step is supported by templates in the BoardReady Onboarding Template pack and executed to a documented SLA so performance is measurable and auditable.
Board materials are confidential. A dedicated VA trained to MySigrid security standards enforces encryption, access controls, and NDA management; we require SOC 2-compliant storage, VPN access for remote assistants, and device-level encryption with MFA. These safeguards reduce the risk of leaks and meet investor expectations.
AI tools accelerate work without eroding control: use GPT-assisted summarization to create one-page board memos from 30-slide decks, Otter.ai for accurate transcripts, and automated changelogs (DocSend + Google Drive version history) to maintain an audit trail. MySigrid’s SigridSync pairs human review with AI drafts so accuracy remains above 95% on executive summaries.
Measure the VA’s impact with tight, outcome-focused KPIs: executive hours saved per board cycle, deck revision count, pre-read open rate, signature turnaround time, and action-item closure rate. Benchmarks we track: 4–8 executive hours saved per cycle, <3 deck revisions after dry run, 95% pre-read open rate among active directors, and 90% action closure within 30 days.
Report these metrics monthly via a compact dashboard: hours saved (converted to $ saved), compliance incidents (zero target), and NPS from board members on materials clarity. These figures make the case to investors and the executive team that the VA is a strategic hire, not a cost center.
Decide based on cadence and complexity: hire a Freelance Assistant for occasional, low-risk boards; hire a Virtual Assistant Services subscription when you need continuity, documented processes, and scale. MySigrid’s subscription plans bundle a vetted Executive Assistant, outcome-based SLAs, and security controls so founders avoid the single-point-of-failure that comes with freelance-only reliance.
For organizations that host quarterly board meetings and frequent investor updates, an ongoing Virtual Assistant Services model delivers a lower total cost of ownership and faster onboarding than repeated freelance hires.
Onboard a board-prep VA with a 72-hour sprint: credentials & access, intake templates, the BoardReady Workflow walkthrough, and a protected test run. Include a Continuity Ledger entry, a documented handoff in SigridSync, and a backup Freelance Assistant on call for redundancy.
Teams that follow this condensed onboarding see first-cycle deliverables completed at 80% compliance and reach full SLA compliance by the second cycle. Link the VA role to your executive calendar, Notion intake, and DocSend permissions during onboarding to avoid ramp friction.
Solstice Health’s dedicated VA reduced executive prep time by 6 hours per cycle; translating executive hourly rates to cost savings, the company conservatively saved $24,000 in annualized exec time and shortened fundraising cycles by two weeks due to cleaner, faster board approvals. The VA also enforced secure signature flows, avoiding a compliance delay that previously cost two days in a past board cycle.
If board meeting chaos is costing you time, create a pilot: assign a dedicated Executive Assistant for one board cycle, implement the BoardReady Workflow, and track the five KPIs above. Use the MySigrid BoardReady Onboarding Template and measure savings after each cycle to build the internal business case for a subscription model.
Explore how a dedicated VA integrates with existing systems and pricing by visiting our Executive Assistant page and checking available options on Plans & Pricing.
Ready to transform your operations? Book a free 20-minute consultation to discover how MySigrid can help you scale efficiently.