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Thank you, Frank. I have a tendency (I think like many members) to see C-suite nominees and think ‘industry’, but that is not actually the case. I think the tendency of boards to be C-suite heavy is a problem[1] (though I understand the logic in terms of needing to understand the financials and business / organizational demands), but a separate problem from industry needs vs the needs of the majority of registrants (where they differ; I would hope they also often overlap since industry should be meeting the needs of registrants, or the industry becomes irrelevant and disappears). I think part of getting more registrants to participate involves having more opportunities for a membership that can actively enhance ‘the mission’ of CIRA and feel rewarded for doing so. That starts with more opportunities for existing members to be active members since word of mouth is still vital to any growth strategy. Does that resonate with you?
(I allude to this a little in another of my questions which might be a better place to go into detail on how to ‘activate’ the membership).
For that matter, if the board is light on industry participation, I’d think similar considerations to improving that as well.
[1] I’d guess that most CIRA registrants are SOHO/SME (and the occasionally indie sites like mine, although I am now working on starting a small business and fit into both of those categories) and that this is not necessarily reflected in who, how, and what decisions are made at CIRA. That’s based on the reality small business makes up a huge part of the business economy in Canada, even though the concentration of money and labour tends to result in larger entities (I suspect) being over-represented in decision making. That’s all a bit of an aside to explain my thinking on this, rather than a specific ask.