OnBoard, an annual accelerator on a mission to foster growth of the tech sector by facilitating governance training and board observership roles within the startup community, has announced its 2023 cohort.

This year’s group includes 24 of New Zealand’s brightest individuals who come from a range of backgrounds within the tech and science sectors and will be hosted by boards including Tracksuit, Osho, CoGo and BioValeo.

Now in its fourth year, OnBoard was created to solve a problem by increasing diversity of thought on startup boards, opening up the tech ecosystem to a wider pool of talent,  as well as fostering a pipeline to be future directors and govern the accelerating number of startups. 

Since its inception, OnBoard has put 68 people through the program. In addition, 78% of all total Observers are from underrepresented groups in technology which covers non-male and underrepresented ethnicities.

Board representation continues to be a huge issue globally, with only 20% of women occupying a board seat. A report produced by Crunchbase and Him For Her, a social impact venture aimed at accelerating diversity on corporate boards found that men still hold 91% of executive board seats across 667 private US companies. Him For Her believes the reason for this imbalance is not a pipeline issue but rather a network problem with boards being over-reliant on their own personal networks to source candidates.

Sophie McLernon, Program Director, OnBoard says, “We see the same problem here in New Zealand,  startup directors tend to refer to independent directors from their own network, which is limited. We want to level the playing field and create opportunities for those who may have previously been overlooked, ultimately contributing to stronger Kiwi businesses”.

OnBoard is widely supported by the tech ecosystem with local venture funds including Movac, Blackbird, Punakaiki, Nuance Capital, GD1, Matu Fund, BrideWest Ventures, WNT Ventures, Pacific Channel, and Motion Capital  working with their respective portfolios to generate host boards to participate in the program. 

Along with board observer roles, OnBoard also provides quarterly training modules to equip those going through the program with training and expertise on governance fundamentals. The workshops are delivered by some of the organisations who are also sponsors of the program - DLA Piper, NZ Trade & Enterprise, New Zealand Growth Capital Partners, Callaghan Innovation and the Institute of Directors.