Meet the Startup Board Member: Pieter Stor

Meet… Pieter Stor!

What is your headline? 

Strategy | Business Model | Capital Raising

What are you passionate about professionally?

I am passionate about how innovation, technology, and digitalisation transform and create new business models that improve people’s lives through better quality products and services with lower costs and easy access. This can be in any industry!

Which sessions of the ScaleUpBoard program did you find the most insightful? 

There were many valuable takeaways but there are two that stand out for me. Being a board member is not just about the hard skills that we generally know, but also very much about the ‘soft controls’ and our own blind spots. These are embedded in a company’s culture, behaviors, and reputation and are much harder to see, let alone recognize.

The other learning is that being on a board of a scale-up requires dedicated engagement beyond the fiduciary and governance duties of The Board. For a scale-up board, the challenges are subject to constant change and include refining strategy, tweaking the business model, setting up financial metrics to measure performance, and building a robust/scalable organization for growth.

How do you want to add value to a board?

I have 20+ years of large corporate experience but have also been CEO of a startup and CFO of a scaleup, and therefore seen a lot of different phases in companies’ life cycles. My background in corporate finance naturally levitates my added value towards the intersection of strategy and finance, where capital raising and M&A are important factors.

If you are on or have been on a board or in an advisory position, how did you encounter the opportunity? If not, what type of board role are you seeking?

I am currently not on any board but am interested in joining a scaleup board that has strategic and/or funding challenges.

What is the best piece of advice some gave to you?

It is not so much about what you think you know, but very much about what you don’t know. Also, beware that what you know is skewed by your biases. Always be curious.

What do you want your impact to be through your work?

Helping companies make sound decisions regarding their path forwards, both strategically and operationally, so that they can successfully implement the change they seek. Making the world a better place is about making small changes within your sphere of influence. The sum of many small changes is incredibly powerful.