Advisory Board Constitution – what does this represent for Elephant Skin?

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A young company that grows nonstop with big talents and new ambitions in the market, when faced with this scenario finds the need to constitute an Advisory Board. Why did we make this choice here at ES?

In general, startups are built by generalists and scaled by specialists, but Elephant Skin took the opposite direction since 2017 and has been growing fast, but not to the point of losing sight of the need for due adjustments for a growing management maturity.

Over the last 2 years, the company has delivered more than 150 projects in 5 countries, in more than 30 cities. Today, it takes a deep dive in a global expansion plan, with future operations in several countries and continents.

This constant dynamism has brought upon us a new reality and, along with it, an advisory board mighty enough for the growth and stability of internal procedures. That being said, advisors Claudio Garcia, experienced as an advisor, professor at the New York University (NYU) and President  of the strategy network in charge of big American corporations Outthinker Network, and Eduardo Valério, a specialist in Corporate Governance, investor and chairman of boards directors, share their knowledge, experience and good guidance around here.

Preparing to expand much more

There are a few key roles played by an advisor, as Claudio explains:

 

• Advising, employing the expertise of someone who is very experienced on the market;

 

• Challenging, questioning whether the decisions made were truly the best ones;

 

• Pointing out new guidelines, aiming at improving the quality of the company’s internal procedures.

Today, Elephant Skin is a creative platform dedicated to the real estate market that delivers a unique experience through storytelling, 3D renderings, animation films and interactive tours to every client. Continuous expansion is part of our culture.

“ES is heading towards becoming a platform to decide on investments and acquisitions of Real Estate, in which people might obtain knowledge on how to invest and acquire real estate”, says Claudio.

This constant search for new learnings has our eyes focused on best practices in terms of governance around here. We are a young company that understands the importance of having a plurality of points of view and listening to professionals who are more experienced and up to date on the market. However, we know that this is not a common behavior to companies that have a structure similar to ours.

According to a report issued by Startup Genome (Why Startups Succeed), a big part of startups does not look for advisors, which makes it harder for them to escalate and, additionally, although they understand the need for relying on such expertise, there is a lot of confusion in regards to the role it plays.

The same report highlights that having an advisory board statistically raises the chances of Startups being successful once they can keep track of their metrics efficiently, being able to gather 7 times more resources and have 3.5 times more user growth compared to those that do not invest on such expertise.

An Advisory Board is not the same as a consultancy

In general, a consultant works for a shorter period in a company, playing a more punctual role, implementing a project in which a certain competence is still not part of the business, sometimes even being mistaken as part of the company staff due to such engagement in management core matters.

Eduardo Valério classifies the role of an advisor into three definitions:

1 - An Advisor is a professional who works close to the company management, but not close enough to promote micromanaging:
 

“The role of an advisor is to care for the future more than the present.”

2 - Sees the company through appropriate lenses; that is, analyzes management performance indexes to know whether the vital signs of a company are doing well.

3 - Observes the quality through which the company results/performance are reached.

“It does not matter if you have a brilliant company but rely on a toxic environment, with a high turnover rate.”

Main impacts of an advisory board in managing a global company

A remote, global company with a startup nature such as our case has several initiatives, but sometimes this might not be so clear. This is why having a board helps strategically organizing all of them.

There is a very important aspect here: people need to know who is on our advisory board and that such a division works alongside all management divisions of our company.

We strive for constant growth. Therefore, we rely on people who can see through different points of view due to the immersion in the management process.

“This is a company that is very tied to new digital and governance management practices. Additionally, I see the energy here being an essential fuel. People are ‘firing on all cylinders’ and that seeps through all their relations”, says Claudio.

This ‘high energy’ and fuel have a lot to do with our founder Henrique Driessen.

He says that no matter how excited a professional is at ES, they will never beat him once he admires and has a lot of affection for the company, format and ‘people platform’ that he dreamed of building for so long. It is consolidated more and more every day and is already very successful.
 

For a new phase, new looks! Willingness? We have plenty of it.
 

Communications Manager - Roberta Lemos | Communication Intern – João Victor Campos
Author – Journalist Daiana Barasa and Juliana Rodrigues | Naiá
Interviewed – Claudio Garcia and Eduardo Valério – Board Advisors

*All Rights Reserved to Elephant Skin Group Corp.​