SME Centre

This centre supports SMEs on their path to good governance, taking into account the specific challenges they face at each stage of growth.

From start-up to family business, from advisory board to professional board of directors.

Governance is not a formality. It helps you make better decisions, manage risks, convince investors and achieve sustainable growth.

That is why GUBERNA aims to inspire SME entrepreneurs on good governance, tailored to their needs.

Governance Maturity Scan

This concise yet well-considered questionnaire (approximately 15 minutes) gives you a clear insight into the key challenges facing your SME and how good governance can help address them.

Once completed, you will receive a free report with tailored recommendations.

Take the scan

This concise yet well-considered questionnaire (approximately 15 minutes) gives you a clear insight into the key challenges facing your SME and how good governance can help address them.

Once completed, you will receive a free report with tailored recommendations.

Take the scan

Want to know more?

Discover in our white paper "Good governance in my SME" how to build a professional governance structure step by step, in line with your company's stage of growth.

Download the white paper

Who is it for?

The SME Centre is (in principle) aimed at SMEs with up to 250 employees and up to the second generation. But what matters most is ambition and governance maturity.

Find out where your company stands today with the Governance Maturity Scan.

Become a member Go to publications

Good governance and maturity

Good governance is not an end in itself, but a means to realise your strategy and create lasting value. As your company grows, your governance evolves with it, in five stages:

The owner decides alone: at start-up, the owner takes every decision single-handedly.
Ad hoc advisers: the entrepreneur seeks external advice on a project basis.
Advisory board: advice is structured within a permanent body that meets regularly.
Active board of directors with external members: the board meets in earnest and focuses on long-term strategy.
Further development of governance bodies: committees such as an audit committee and a remuneration committee are added as the company continues to grow.

This evolution is not linear: some companies move quickly, others more slowly. The pace is set above all by the maturity and openness of the entrepreneur.

Advisory board or board of directors?

An advisory board is an external sounding board where the entrepreneur can discuss the future in complete confidence. A board of directors goes a step further: it has real decision-making power and a legal basis. In short: the board of directors are the players on the pitch; the advisory board is the coach on the sidelines.

Benefits of an advisory board

Easy to set up, no legal obligations
Professionalises the way the business is run, step by step
Flexible and tailored to your company
Focus on competencies rather than formalities

Benefits of a board of directors

Legal basis and binding decisions
Emphasis on the long term and strategic focus
External credibility with banks, suppliers and investors
Clear division of tasks and responsibilities

Why external directors?

Twelve reasons why working with external advisers or directors is a good idea:

It is an essential step towards professionalising the company.
It stimulates strategic thinking.
It helps the company cope with its growing complexity, scale and scope.
It is an ideal instrument for sound monitoring, control and risk management.
It promotes long-term leadership and succession.
Good governance supports the progress of growth companies, which is also key to the development of our economy.
It helps the company demonstrate its ESG efforts.
It provides access to a new network.
It improves the company's risk profile and thereby strengthens the confidence of investors and employees.
An active board of directors pays attention to aligning the various shareholders.
An active board of directors encourages good cooperation with 'patient' providers of illiquid capital.
A collegial board of directors is a legal requirement in every NV/SA (public limited company), or in a BV/SRL (private limited company) if its articles of association provide for one.

Services & tools

Board self evaluation tool

The GUBERNA Board Self Evaluation Tool is a practical digital tool that allows the board of an organisation to reflect on its functioning and to identify and implement concrete action points in order to improve its effectiveness. Creating awareness and simulating a board evaluation is a first step in the continuous improvement that is necessary for every individual director and every board.
Governance maturity scan

As the business leader of a young company or an ambitious SME, you are looking for a balanced and workable relationship between shareholder(s), directors and management. This can raise many questions and doubts. In practice, good governance is something other than "simply applying a few principles or following some rules from a code". Yet the tools or experience to make the right choice from the many codes and all the possible 'best practice' recommendations are sometimes lacking.