Leverage Your Experience: How to Land Your First Advisory Role

You have hard-earned skills and functional expertise that early-stage founders, younger professionals, and industry newcomers desperately need. Yet, many experienced professionals hesitate to step into advisory roles due to perceived barriers around time commitments, corporate optics, or simply knowing where to start. This session will break down those barriers and provide a practical roadmap for securing and succeeding in your first board or advisory position.

If you are worried about the corporate optics, rest assured: your boss is not going to fire you. A quick look at their LinkedIn profile will likely reveal that they advise multiple people and companies themselves. Furthermore, advisory work is highly flexible. A commitment of just a few focused hours a month can be incredibly impactful for a growing startup and entirely manageable alongside your main career.

What You’ll Walk Away With:

• A Specific Personal Template: A ready-to-use framework to help you package your corporate expertise into a highly sought-after advisory asset.

• A Network Outreach Plan: A specific, easy-to-follow plan to re-engage six people who have helped you along your career path, turning warm contacts into advisory conversations.

• Accelerated Day-Job Performance: Fresh perspectives and innovative approaches that directly improve your performance and decision-making in your primary role.

• Agile Solutions: Exposure to new tools, templates, and operational playbooks that work better, faster, and cheaper in younger, fast-moving companies.

About the Speaker:

Loran Gutt is currently balancing a rewarding day job as SVP Strategy and Corp Dev at Bazaarvoice with paid board and advisory roles across six companies, serving on the Board of Directors for Shipsi, acting as a CEO strategy advisor for Wunderkind, and several earlier-stage companies, while driving exponential revenue growth, executing transformational M&A, and delivering exceptional financial turnarounds and outsized returns (up to 6x ROIC) for top private equity-backed software and enterprise companies.

• Intermediate
• Soft Skills
• Careers