Why Presenting to the Board Feels So High Stakes - And Why a Great Strategy Still Isn’t Enough
The board loved this Product VP's plan - then quietly questioned if she was the one to deliver it.
Hey 👋 I’m Andrew - and welcome to the Delivering Value Substack, where I write about the stuff growth leaders don’t always talk about: lessons from the trenches, honest convos with other leaders, and what I’m learning as I build my business solo.
This post is part of my Candid Convos series, where I chat with SaaS leaders to unpack the toughest moments in their careers - and explore how they navigated ‘em.
A few hours after presenting to the board, Elena Luneva assumed she was walking into a debrief.
Just a quick one-on-one with her CEO after presenting to the board for the first time. She had just laid out a bold vision for Nextdoor’s local business unit - one she’d built from scratch. She shared her ideas, navigated their feedback, and kept everyone engaged. She walked out of the boardroom feeling proud.
So when she sat down with her CEO afterwards and asked, “How do you think it went?” She wasn’t prepared for the answer.
“They loved your strategy,” her CEO said. “But some of them are asking - are you the right person to lead it?”
Elena didn’t hear anything after that. Her brain went underwater. She had expected feedback on the plan. Not her presence.
Was my voice shaking? Did I hedge too much? I practiced this for weeks.
Elena had spent her whole career proving she belonged in those rooms. She had a computer science degree. An MBA. Had spent years at BlackRock. And worked her way up the Product Manager leadership track at some of the biggest names in tech. She knew the plan was solid.
But none of that mattered if people didn’t feel her confidence.
“That moment could have shattered my career,” she shared during our conversation.
But it didn’t.
Because what Elena did next, the work she forced herself to do, produced the kind of shift that most people spend years avoiding.
She stopped focusing on being right, and started learning how to be effective.
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She worked hard to get into that room
Elena was born in Russia but her family moved to Toronto at nine, then to New York in high-school.
She studied computer science in undergrad (one of only a handful of women in her major), then got her MBA before entering the professional workforce.
Her career arc after that is insane.
She landed at BlackRock. Then OpenTable. Then LiquidSpace. Then Nextdoor. Each move was a step deeper into product and leadership. Each one built on the last.
By the time she joined Nextdoor, it was a late-stage startup that had raised hundreds of millions, and a CEO with public market experience. It was transitioning from a neighborhood social network into a larger business - with larger revenue expectations.
That’s where Elena came in.
She was hired to build a new business unit from scratch: a way for local businesses (bakeries, dry cleaners, independent shops, etc) to participate in the platform.
At the time, there was no onboarding flow, no monetization strategy, no product at all.
She built the entire thing. A platform for local businesses to create profiles, post deals, and connect with neighbors in a meaningful (and profitable) way. A big bet that paid off.
She was promoted into her first GM role - a step up from leading product, design, and marketing to owning a full business unit, with new responsibilities across go-to-market and revenue.
She worked closely with the CEO. And for the first time in her career, she’d be presenting to the board.
This was the kind of opportunity that could catapult her to the next level.
Elena came from a family where the answer to most problems was simple: work harder.
If something felt hard, you didn’t complain about it. You didn’t slow down. You just focused and got better.
“It never crossed my mind that I could get less than an A,” she told me. “That just wasn’t an option.”
That mindset had served her well. She always delivered.
She’d put in the work for this presentation.
Ran through the slides a bunch. Rewrote her talking points. Practiced answering tough questions out loud just in case they came up. And in the room, things felt good too. The board asked smart questions. People nodded along. Nobody pushed back on the strategy. If anything, they seemed excited about her plan.
Elena walked out thinking, That went well.
So when her CEO said, “The board loved the strategy, but they’re not sure you’re the right person to lead it” - her brain short-circuited.
“It hit me like a freight train.”
She wasn’t even sure what had gone wrong. Was her voice too quiet? Did she hedge too much? Was she supposed to talk slower? Stand taller? Smile more?
This wasn’t feedback about the plan. It was feedback about her.
And she had no idea what to do with it.
“I went through all the phases - denial, anger, defensiveness. I didn’t want to believe it.”
She’d always worked through challenges by being better at the work.
But this wasn’t about the work.
“I realized… this is something that’s standing in my way.”
Her CEO recommended an executive coach.
At first, she didn’t want to go. Asking for help felt like admitting failure. But eventually, she came around and said yes. And slowly, she started to understand: this wasn’t about changing who she was. It was about showing up in a way that made it easier for other people to see who she already was.
They worked on the mechanics - voice, tone, executive presence.
But more than that, they worked on mindset. On getting comfortable being uncomfortable. On letting go of perfectionism. On feeling things she used to shove aside.
“I had to stop putting everything I didn’t like in a box and pushing it away. My coach told me - invite it in. Sit with it.”
One idea that stuck with her came from a podcast she listened to around that time:
Shift from being right to being effective.
It hit hard. Because up until then, being right had always been enough. But at a certain level of leadership, clarity, confidence, and trust mattered just as much as accuracy. Sometimes more.
“You can have the best product strategy. But if people don’t buy in, if you can’t bring others with you, it won’t matter.”
Later, when COVID hit, and 50% of local businesses on Nextdoor shut down overnight, she had to present to the board again.
But this time was different. The numbers were gone. The projections didn’t matter. The only thing she had was uncertainty.
“I stood in front of them and said, ‘That plan we showed you? It’s not going to happen. And I know I’m responsible for it.’”
She didn’t hide from the moment. She didn’t try to spin it. She told the truth - and focused on what her team could do: support local businesses in crisis, help them stay visible, and rebuild community trust.
And they listened.
Because now, it wasn’t just about what she said. It was how she showed up to say it.
Catch Elena’s entire story on YouTube
Listen on Spotify
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