Alexis Kyprianou is a certified administrator in France and Luxembourg. He has had several mandates during his 25-year career in companies of all sizes. He has experienced governance as an independent Director, as an Executive Director and as a member of management. Alexis trains Directors on certification programs for several national Institutes of Directors (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Cyprus, and Morocco). His expertise is group dynamics and the relationship between management and the Board.

ILA: Why is it important to improve your personal impact in the Boardroom?

Alexis Kyprianou: No one in the Boardroom has actually got exclusive decision-making power. Decisions have to be taken collegially. Personal impact in the Boardroom is the ability to deploy a set of unique soft skills that succinctly get your point across. But at the same time, you're co-constructing by leveraging the contributions of all the other Directors. Personal impact concretely is what you should say, and how you should say it in order to progress the group. And the group being of course your Board of Directors or your governance group, your governance body.

ILA: So how is the course structured, what to expect?

Alexis Kyprianou: We start by identifying what the main challenges are of a Director in his or her Board meeting. Examples are getting around the cognitive bias of management, getting around hidden interests, how to influence and move the group forward especially when you're not particularly convinced by the recommendation for each of the challenges that are identified. What I will do is give the participants a toolbox of what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. We’ll then have some fun putting all of those techniques into play in a simulated Board meeting where the participants will play the Board members and I'll be the CEO. I won't be making life easy for the Board of Directors. We’ll be putting into play the personal impact techniques, then we'll debrief together on the efficiency and the effectiveness of that and then refine execution if necessary. The good thing for the participants is they don't have to prepare anything in advance. It's it's an extremely practical course where they literally learn by doing.

ILA: What are the participants taking away, which will help them in their day-to-day work?

Alexis Kyprianou: They're going to get a really practical toolbox of soft skills that allows them to make an individual impact, but which moves the whole group forward and hopefully with that adds value to what management brings to the table.

ILA: Alexis, thank you for your time and insights.

The new edition of Improving Personal Impact in the Boardroom​ is coming up on 27 March 2025. Register here.

Alexis Kyprianou
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