What is Aura Boards?

Aura Boards: turning board work into leading the future

Why Aura?

The thinking was born from dissatisfaction with the prevailing board culture. In entrepreneur- and family-owned growth companies, traditional board work adds little value, if any. Meetings look backwards, the material arrives late, and owners, board and management live in three different worlds.

Aura describes the extended task of the board: to lead the company’s future, not just to administer the present. That is why the mission is simple: turning board work into leading the future.

What is Aura?

Aura is not a single product but a whole: an ideology, tools, operating models and an AI-assisted situation room. It connects owners, the board and management, the owner–board–management chain, into one team with a shared direction.

The owner creates the opportunities, the board builds tomorrow, and management delivers the results.

The whole is built on four levels:

• Method: systemic leadership. Ownership, board and management as one chain.
• Solution: the Operating System for Success. The Finnish Linux of leadership systems.
• Community: Aura Boards. The machine calculates, the human decides.
• Tools: Board Magnet (AI situation room). An AI board-process tool and situation room. One tool, not the whole system.

Five changes in the board’s work

1. Systemic leadership. Ownership, board and management as one system, not three separate worlds.
2. Forward-looking annual planning. Goals, projects and responsibilities for the coming year: a plan that leads tomorrow.
3. The board spars on the quality of the company’s work. Not only the numbers: strategy, customers, competence and capabilities belong on the table.
4. Planned board work. An annual clock and rhythm instead of a meeting-to-meeting culture. At least six meetings a year, and every meeting is a Moment for Tomorrow.
5. We over me: one team. Owners, board and management are not three parties but one team with clear roles.

Five pillars

No company is perfect, but there is always a better version of the previous one. A better version of a company is created by building the Operating System for Success into it. The system stands on five pillars:

1. Foresight and forecasting. Direction towards the future. Scenarios, not the rear-view mirror.
2. Strategy and documentation. One shared plan for owners, board and management.
3. Real-time information. Interaction before the meetings, in a 52/12/365 rhythm.
4. Structured encounters. An annual clock, workshops, at least six meetings a year.
5. AI support. The AI situation room and leading by forecast.

The machine calculates, the human decides

Board Magnet is Aura’s tool: an AI-supported board process and a virtual situation room. The AI situation room brings five streams (strategy, finance, market, AI and experience) into one view to support decision-making.

Five streams. One situation room. One decision.

The boundaries are clear. The machine calculates, the human decides. The machine does not sit at the table; the machine is the table.

The method is open

The methodology is published openly: the Methodology and Annual Planning white papers are already open publications.

Welcome to build a better version.

By Ville Tolvanen. Originally published in Finnish: Mikä on Aura Boards?. More in English: Aura Boards — start here.