Your business has outgrown gut-feel decisions. It hasn't outgrown you
GBI designs, staffs and runs a professional board or advisory board for your business: an experienced chair, hand-picked directors matched to your challenges, and the meeting discipline that turns owner instinct into governed growth.
Our members, alumni and clients come from iconic organizations
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Most SME founders carry alone what listed companies share with a board
Every major decision (pricing, expansion, hiring, succession, funding) lands on one desk: yours. Banks ask about governance before they lend. Investors ask before they invest. Family members ask who decides what when you are away. And the honest answer in most successful SMEs is: it all depends on the founder.
A professional board fixes this without taking your company away from you. You stay in control of ownership and vision. The board brings structured challenge, experienced judgment and accountability, so decisions get stress-tested before they get expensive.
Everything a real board needs, delivered as a service
Every engagement is scoped to your board after a short brief, no off-the-shelf documents, no generic templates.
Online board diagnostic
A self-serve assessment of your current governance: decision-making, oversight, succession readiness and investor-readiness, with a scored report and recommendations.
Board design and charter
The right board for your size and ambitions: mandate, reserved matters, meeting cadence and a simple charter that keeps the founder in control of what matters.
An experienced chair
A GBI-provided chair who runs the meetings, manages the agenda and holds the room to standard, so you can participate as owner, not referee.
Hand-picked directors
Two to four experienced directors from GBI's global network, matched to your sector, market and current challenges, engaged and managed by GBI.
Governance operations
Agendas, board packs, minutes, action tracking and the annual calendar, all run for you. Your team's overhead: close to zero.
Annual review and renewal
A yearly effectiveness check on the board itself: what it moved, what it should tackle next, and whether the composition still fits your growth.
A clear process, designed around your board's calendar
We keep demands on director time deliberately light. Most of the work happens between meetings, not in them.
Take the diagnostic
The online diagnostic gives you a scored picture of your governance in 15 minutes, before you spend anything else.
Owner brief
A confidential conversation about your business, your ambitions and what you want a board to do (and not do).
Board design
We propose the board model, cadence, charter and director profiles, and agree the design with you.
Director matching
We present chair and director candidates from our network. You meet them; nothing proceeds without your comfort.
First board cycle
GBI runs your first meeting end-to-end: pack, agenda, minutes, actions. The rhythm is set from day one.
The GBI SME Board Model™
Built for owner-led businesses: all the discipline of a professional board, none of the bureaucracy that scares founders away.
Owner-first
You keep control. The board advises, challenges and holds management to account; it never outvotes your ownership.
Fit-for-size
A board designed for your stage: advisory board, full board, or a hybrid that grows as you do.
Run-for-you
GBI operates the machinery: packs, minutes, actions, calendar. You get the value without the admin.
Bank-and-investor ready
Governance that lenders, investors and family shareholders recognize and trust.
The SME Board Readiness Diagnostic
A self-serve online assessment built for owner-led businesses. Fifteen minutes, a scored report across the areas banks and investors examine, and a clear view of whether a board would pay for itself in your business.
- Scored assessment across decision-making, oversight and succession
- Investor-readiness and bank-readiness indicators
- Benchmarks against businesses of your size and stage
- Clear recommendation: advisory board, full board, or not yet
Get your copy
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Advisory led by practitioners, not theorists
Wassim Karkabi
Founder & Executive Chairman, Global Board Institute
Wassim advises boards, chairs and shareholders across the GCC and internationally on governance, board effectiveness and director development. He leads every advisory engagement personally, supported by GBI's global faculty of experienced chairs and directors.
“I ran the company for eighteen years without anyone challenging my numbers. The first board meeting was uncomfortable in exactly the way it needed to be, and the second one saved us from a bad acquisition.”
Founder and CEO, trading groupFrequently asked questions
Will I lose control of my company?
No. Ownership and shareholder rights stay exactly where they are. The board's mandate is set out in a charter you approve, and in most SME structures the board advises and oversees while the owner retains final say on reserved matters. Control is designed in, not hoped for.
What does it cost?
The online diagnostic is the low-cost entry point. The full board-as-a-service is priced after the owner brief, based on board size, cadence and director profiles, as a predictable annual fee. It is a fraction of the cost of one bad strategic decision, which is the honest comparison.
Who are the directors?
Experienced chairs, directors and operators from GBI's global network, people who have run and governed businesses larger than yours is today. You meet every candidate before appointment, and chemistry with the owner is a selection criterion, not an afterthought.
Is this for family businesses too?
Especially. A professional board is the single most effective bridge between generations: it professionalizes decisions without removing the family from them, and it gives next-generation leaders a governed environment to grow into.
What if it doesn't work for us?
The engagement is annual, and the board's own performance is reviewed every year against what it was asked to move. If the model is not paying for itself, we redesign it or wind it down properly. No founder should be locked into governance theater.
How is this different from hiring consultants?
Consultants advise on a project and leave. A board governs continuously: it owns the calendar, tracks every decision to outcome, and is accountable for challenge. Many clients use both; they do different jobs.
Run your business with a board behind you
Start with the 15-minute diagnostic, or book a confidential call with our founder. We will tell you honestly whether your business is ready for a board, and which kind.
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