Harrowgate Q3 FY27 Board Meeting
Board meeting deck that ends on decisions, not updates
Harrowgate Software’s Q3 board deck is twelve slides for a two hour meeting, sent as a pre-read five days before. Nine slides report and three ask, because a board that only receives updates has nothing to do, and a board that is not asked to decide anything will decide something anyway.
Every slide, in order
The whole deck as it renders, one slide after another. Read it the way the audience would.
The structure
What each slide is doing, so you can reuse the order even with different content.
- Slide 1cover
- A formal typographic cover that reads like a filing: meeting, date and pre-read version.
- Slide 2agenda
- A timed agenda: two hours, five blocks, decisions last so the reporting cannot swallow them.
- Slide 3takeaway
- The CEO summary in five bullets, bad news included, so the meeting starts honest.
- Slide 4metrics
- The scorecard with plan, actual and variance, so every later number has a reference.
- Slide 5metrics
- The ARR bridge reconciling opening to closing, so growth is auditable, not asserted.
- Slide 6metrics
- The P&L against plan in five lines, in millions, with the burn line last.
- Slide 7divider
- A chaptered divider into the deep dive, with the whole agenda visible as a progress bar.
- Slide 8comparison
- Every enterprise decision this quarter with its reason, losses beside wins.
- Slide 9framework
- Six risks placed on likelihood and impact, each with a named response.
- Slide 10tree
- The hiring plan by function, with open roles and start dates as chips.
- Slide 11checklist
- Three decision cards carrying the exact resolution wording that will be minuted.
- Slide 12closing
- The housekeeping grid: next meeting, pre-read deadline, secretary and the resolutions count.
How to adapt this deck
A nonprofit board swaps the ARR bridge for funds raised against budget and the option pool decision for a program approval, and the consent block grows because compliance items multiply. A pre-seed board of two investors can run the same order in six slides: summary, scorecard, cash, one dive, risks, decisions. The real adaptation decision is what moves to the pre-read: anything the board should absorb but not discuss, historical detail, full financial statements, letters, belongs behind the deck, and the deck keeps only what the meeting must touch. Whatever moves to the pre-read, keep the decision cards last and keep them worded as resolutions, because a board deck that ends on a discussion slide gives the secretary nothing to write down and the meeting nothing to close on.
What makes this deck work
Every number gets a reference column
The scorecard on slide four carries plan, actual and variance for six metrics, so ARR at $22.1M reads as plus 2% and the headcount miss reads as minus 6. Once the board has seen the reference frame, the ARR bridge and the P&L slides that follow inherit it, and debate happens on variances rather than levels.
The ARR bridge reconciles the quarter
Opening ARR of $20.3M walks through $1.4M new, $0.9M expansion, $0.4M churn and $0.1M contraction to close at $22.1M. A bridge that ties to both the scorecard and the P&L makes the financial section auditable in the room, which is what board members are legally there to do.
The decisions carry minute-ready wording
Slide eleven is three cards, each starting with the word Resolved: a 12% enterprise price rise from a named date, a three year lease with an 18 month break, and a 2% option pool expansion. Wording that can be lifted straight into the minutes is the difference between asking for a decision and getting one.
Questions people ask
What goes in a board deck?
A consent block, a short CEO summary, financials against plan, one deep dive, risks, people, and the decisions. This example does it in twelve slides with a timed agenda holding 40 minutes for the deep dive and 20 for decisions. Everything else the board might want lives in the pre-read appendix.
How long should a board deck be?
Ten to fifteen slides presented, with depth pushed to the pre-read. This deck is twelve for a two hour meeting. The consent agenda takes routine approvals in one timed block, which is what keeps a two hour meeting from spending forty minutes on minutes.
Should the deck be a pre-read or presented live?
Both, from one file. Harrowgate sends this deck five days ahead marked as version 2, then presents the same slides. The CEO summary exists so a director who read nothing can still follow, and the decision cards exist so a director who read everything can move straight to the vote.
What should the CEO summary say?
Five bullets, at least one of them uncomfortable. This example leads with ARR ahead of plan, then states two enterprise losses on security review and a six person hiring shortfall before naming the three decisions. A summary that hides the misses guarantees the board finds them at slide six instead.
How do I present bad news to a board?
Early, quantified and attached to an action. The two lost deals appear in the CEO summary, again in the won and lost table with reasons, and the SOC 2 renewal that caused them sits in the mitigate quadrant of the risk matrix with the fix funded in the hiring plan. Bad news travelling with its remedy reads as control.
How do I share a board deck safely?
The share link is read only and always serves the latest saved version, which suits a pre-read that gets corrections. One caution verified in the product: anyone with a share link can open the speaker notes with the N key, so keep commentary out of the notes on a board deck and put it in the pack itself.
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