How Go To Market is discussed in PE board meetings - 'the good, the bad, and the ugly'

I’ve had the privilege (and, occasionally, the curse!) of sitting in on a lot of private equity board discussions about Go To Market. I’ve been the one pulling late nights writing slides for the board, as well as the one grilling the team on why sales missed plan (again).

Done well, board meetings can cut through tough decisions to provide direction and clarity. Done badly? You find yourself down a rabbit hole trying to unpick last month’s performance line by line, and management feel like they undergo a monthly job interview.   

This article aims to shed some light on how Go To Market (GTM) is discussed at a private equity Board. What questions are the Board trying to answer? What are some common pitfalls and how to avoid them? How to make the most of the Board? 

Perhaps you have a new investor and want to understand how best to prepare for board discussions? Or you are part of the Marketing team preparing board updates and would like to understand what happens behind the scenes? Or perhaps you are a private equity investor who wants to shift to more strategic discussions? I hope this article provides some insight and practical suggestions. 

Firstly, what is the Board actually trying to figure out?  

What questions are the Board trying to answer? We have previously written about the key marketing information to include in a board update. Board discussions vary, but underneath most GTM updates, these are the core questions investors are trying to answer:

Boards focus on short-term performance and long-term value creation — and what to do next.

• Did we hit the targets? Sales, leads, marketing ROI, whatever the core metrics are

• Did we hit them predictably? Are results consistent by channel, region, rep, or product?

• Are we on track to keep hitting them? Is pipeline strong enough? Is churn and CAC (cost of customer acquisition) in line with forecast?

• What else can we do to drive growth? Should we be investing more in things that are working?

• If not, do we understand why? And what are we doing about it?

• Are we on track to deliver the value creation plan? And is that strategy still the right one?

  • Are the big initiatives on track, or do we need to rethink?

  • Are there strategic items to react to e.g. investment decisions, changes in the competitive landscape, evaluating the platform and team

• Therefore, what are our options? For example:

  • What if we ramped up spend on paid search?

  • What if we hired more sales people?

  • What if we entered a new market?

  • What if we scrapped a whole segment?

What are some common pitfalls and points of friction?

1. “Show me the data” (but it’s in five different spreadsheets)

   Investors want a clear view of the numbers and drivers of performance. But many businesses don’t yet have the infrastructure to deliver clean, joined-up data. That’s often the point where we (Coppett Hill) get brought in — to stitch together CRM, marketing, finance, and ops data into something useful.

   
   

2. Accountant vs Creatives

   Your Sales and Marketing leaders may be storytellers. Your investors may be ex-accountants or bankers who want everything MECE and modelled. That culture clash can be frustrating — but it can also be bridged. Good GTM data connects the day-to-day operational narrative to the boardroom story, without needing two separate worlds.

   
   

3. The performance post-mortem

   Sometimes the meeting gets dragged into explaining every line of missed forecast. This usually happens when investors don’t feel confident that the commercial team understands (or is in control of) the GTM levers. That leads to an interrogation which nobody enjoys.

   
   

4. The 100-page update: 

   Boards ask for more data each month. But unless something gets taken out, the pack just gets longer. Research shows that 86% of PE professionals and 70% of NEDs feel there is far too much information in portfolio company board packs.

   
   

5. Investment hesitancy (or is it?)

   When management brings forward a proposal — say, more budget for a new campaign — they might feel like the grilling from the Board is because their investors are risk averse or pushing back on cost. Often, though, investors want to invest in growth. They just need to understand the ROI, the options and trade-offs before backing a decision.

   
   

6. “What about that new AI thing I read about?” 

   Board conversations can get derailed by whatever trend the lead investor is excited about this week, or has seen in another portfolio company. Sometimes, these ideas spark great discussions. But thrown in without context, they can be overwhelming for an already stretched team.

   
   

Disconnected data, culture clashes, and overloaded decks often derail GTM clarity in PE board meetings.

What a great Board meeting feels like

Board meetings are a big investment each month (just add up the prep time and “day rates” in the room). Too often, they can feel like a reporting chore. Done well, they should feel like an opportunity for collaboration, leveraging experience, problem solving and building trust.

For Go-To-Market leaders, a good meeting can unlock a ton of value:

• The chance to move fast when something’s working

  When there’s clear evidence that a lever is delivering — say, PPC with a strong ROI and a manageable cash profile — the Board can give the green light to go bigger, even beyond the original budget. These discussions can also help resolve internal gridlock: getting CFO buy-in on spend, for example, becomes a lot easier when the full Board sees the link to additional value.

  
  

• An outside lens on tough trade-offs

  Non-execs aren’t in the day-to-day weeds. That means they can provide independent challenge, call time on slow-moving initiatives, and bring sharper focus to what really matters. The hardest and often most valuable thing a Board can agree is, “Let’s stop doing this.”

  
  

• Lessons from elsewhere (including the messy stuff)

  Your investors have seen things. Maybe it’s how to structure GTM for a US launch, or what not to do when hiring internationally. Their scars — and the scars from other portfolio companies — can save you months of pain. Ask them what’s worked, what’s failed, and what they’d do differently.

  
  

• Introductions that actually help

  This is often underrated. Good investors (and engaged NEDs) should be able to connect you to peers, specialists, and third parties who’ve delivered great work. Be specific in your ask — and be shameless in asking. Even if they don’t know someone directly, they can often source a recommendation from across the portfolio

Practical tips for GTM leaders

Here’s how to make your GTM section of the Board meeting actually useful (and maybe even enjoyable):

• Anchor in value creation and budget impact: Frame your update around 3–5 strategic levers tied to the value creation plan and their impact on the budget — including revenue targets, budgeted spend, and efficiency metrics

• Focus your metrics: Pick a handful that really drive performance — think search visibility, ICP-fit leads, ROI, churn.

• Kill the vanity stats: Avoid stats like website visits and social media followers. Only include metrics that link to value e.g. if referral is a key channel, then yes — share rate might matter.

• Tell a story with your numbers:

  • Use visuals (e.g. charts showing trends over time).

  • Include historical context and targets.

  • Be clear what question the data is answering — one chart per question.

• Provide a summary upfront: Use the first page to say what matters. Flag where you want feedback or decisions.

• Context is everything: Remind your audience of how things fit into the overall strategy. Reference wider market dynamics when sharing trends.

• Don’t bury bad news. Be upfront. The most productive conversations often start with a concern honestly raised.

• Cut the jargon: Remember that sales and marketing is not an area most investors will have first-hand experience of. You wouldn’t expect the CTO to present the board with details about the javascript code, so keep the narrative accessible, without losing the quantitative aspects.

  • The classic, “Imagine explaining this to your mum”, is a good litmus test for simplicity and clarity.

Practical tips for Investors

• Set expectations upfront: Help management understand what the Board wants to see — especially if it’s their first time in a PE-backed environment.

• Balance steering with supervision: Let the team run the day-to-day, but use Board time to challenge assumptions and shape direction. If you need more comfort around performance, it might be better to have a focussed conversation outside the Board.

• If you ask for data, be clear why: What decision will it inform? Is it needed ongoing or is it one-off?

• Help management to focus and prioritise: Don’t just keep adding requests and ideas to the list.

• Share the gold: Your network, your failures, your portfolio learnings, practical examples — that’s where you can add massive value.

• Be careful with curveballs: That AI podcast idea you mentioned might be a throwaway comment… but someone’s going to spend days building a deck on it.

• Bring in subject matter experts when needed: At the surface level, GTM topics can seem common sense, but they get technical fast. External parties can help navigate this outside the boardroom.

  • We are often asked to support companies with understanding things like unit economics and marketing attribution – seemingly simple topics, which are often misleadingly calculated and interpreted.

For investors and operators alike, sharpening how Go To Market is discussed at the Board isn't just about reporting — it’s about driving growth. The right conversation, backed by the right data, can shift priorities, surface blockers, and accelerate momentum. How do your GTM board discussions stack up? 

If you’d like to discuss how to enable more effective Go To Market discussions at your board, please Contact Us.