WCD Private Company & Family Business Peer Exchange

Summary

On February 5, 2026, members of Women Corporate Directors’ Private Company & Family Business Peer Exchange met virtually to discuss capital raising considerations in the current market environment. They were joined by guests Bola Adesola (Chair of the Board, Ecobank Nigeria; Chairman Board of Trustees, Healthcare Federation of Nigeria; Director, The Currency Exchange, Central Securities Clearing System, Guinness Nigeria Plc; WCD Nigeria), Amy Butte (Strategic Advisor, Navan), and Trish Costello (Founder & CEO, Portfolia). Andrea Muller (Board Director/Audit Chair, Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. LLC., Board Director/Audit Chair, Blockstream Corporation Inc.; WCD South Florida) moderated the discussion.

The discussion highlighted several themes: 

• The bar for IPO-readiness is continuously rising.
  • What it means to be ready for the public markets today is very different from even a few years ago. “The bar continues to get higher, even post-2025, which was supposed to be the year IPO markets opened up. But that bar is no longer $200-300 million or more in revenue with the company being on the threshold of profitability. It’s now closer to $1 billion in revenue with the company showing profitability as soon as you go out,” one participant said. Board members must also consider that “the actual cost of going public goes beyond regulatory fees or technical readiness; there’s a psychological cost to business and staff morale.”
    
• Consider the public scrutiny and reputational risks associated with going public.
  • The panel highlighted the importance of understanding the cultural and operational shifts that come with entering the public markets. “It’s a mindset change that the company has to get used to. The biggest tradeoff is giving up privacy for being in a ‘goldfish bowl’,” stated one panelist. Public companies operate under intense analysis from investors, regulators, and the media. That scrutiny brings real risks including potential reputational issues, increased regulatory and legal exposure, and operational distractions. Boards and management teams should factor this reality into their decision-making and have strong governance and disciplined processes in place to withstand the residual effects of public review.
    
• An IPO is a forcing function for a company to mature. 
  • The panelists shared advice for IPO-readiness and noted three areas that often get overlooked that boards can focus on as part of the IPO-readiness process:
    1. 1. Consider tax implications early on. Taxes are “usually the thing that gets you that no one pays attention to.”
       2. Ensure the company’s key performance indicators are well defined. These metrics must be reliable and auditable; “use numbers to tell your story.” 
       3. Assess the “reliability of the financial statements and relationship with the auditor.” Ensure the company fully understands how actions and policies translate into the financials so there are no significant issues post-going public.
• Narrative discipline is as critical as financial discipline. 
  • How companies tell their story matters more than ever.  If a company is “honest and upfront, investors will likely stick with them even if an exit is delayed by years,” one panelist said. It is important to ensure the lines of communication are always open to “bring your investors along.” The panelists also emphasized that private and public investors look for very different things. “Private investors buy a vision. Public investors like to know there is a vision, but really want to see what you’re producing.”
    
• Create the relationships before you need them. 
  • Panelists stressed the importance of creating relationships early, including with investors, banks, and long-term capital partners. “If you can have a relationship with a bank, have it. Because once you need it, you won’t be able to get it. And build more than one banking relationship too,” one said. Companies that invest early in these relationships typically benefit from greater flexibility, better advice, and more resilience when timelines stretch or markets shift. 
• Family businesses have additional considerations.
  • For family businesses that are still at the stage of conducting “board meetings at the dining table,” it is important to put the right board structure in place – for example, adding independent directors on the board before taking the steps to find additional funding. A panelist advised family businesses to have the “next generation of leadership get experience at other companies to learn how to perform outside the nucleus of the family business.” These family-owned companies also need to be aware that “the minute they introduce third parties into the business, whether through public or private funding, the definition of value creation is totally different.”  

Reflection questions:

• How is your company considering the advantages and drawbacks of remaining private versus accessing public capital? How do considerations around control, disclosure, and flexibility influence your company and board’s thinking?
• If your company and board were to consider a move toward public markets, what gaps would need to be addressed first (financial, operational, or governance-related, etc.)? How confident are you that the organization could meet public-company expectations on transparency, reporting, and accountability?
• How does your company’s financial profile, growth horizon, and governance structure align with current investor expectations? 
• What lessons can you learn from companies that have successfully gone public or stayed private? Conversely, what are some decisions or assumptions that caused problems or limited their options?