Non-Executive Director · Independent Chair · Board Advisor
Your board is long on capital. Short on operators.
I've spent ten years on the other side of the board pack - writing it, defending it, and then going away and delivering it. I've seen Series B, C, D and beyond. IPO-readiness, acquisition, and a $3.7bn exit. I know the business beyond the carefully selected numbers on the page. I know how scary the quarterly meetings can feel, and how frictionless everything can become when the work starts working.
The gap in the room
Most boards have the market covered. Fewer have Monday covered.
Your investors know the market and the money. The governance is covered. But when the CEO says the leadership team is misaligned, or the plan slipped again, or that the culture has quietly changed since headcount shifted - someone in the room needs to have lived it, not just read about it.
I've been the executive answering those questions. I know how much of a board answer is real and how much is a founder buying themselves another quarter, because I've done both. I know how to create the conditions for the truth to surface — giving founders and executives enough psychological safety to be candid, without softening the challenge or avoiding the difficult conversation.
Boards recruit against the column they're missing. Here are the six I fill.
Maturing operations whilst driving sustainable growth
The stage where the business outgrows the way it's run. I've done it from the inside: took Unmind from Series B scrappiness to Series C maturity, introduced company-wide OKRs and a way to execute against metrics that matter. Cut monthly operating burn by 58% while improving employee engagement. If you're facing this, you know it's not easy.
Culture and people risk — measured, not felt
I reset Unmind's culture from clan-oriented to performance-led against the OCAI benchmark and have the numbers: a 10-point gap between the experienced and desired culture closed, commercial accountability up 42%, innovation and autonomy up 15%, consensus-dependency down 24%. People risk usually reaches the board about six months after it becomes a problem. I'll help identify it in month one.
International expansion — beyond the pin on the map
At Unmind we moved the revenue base from a UK business with an export line to a genuinely global one: UK 82% → 50%, US 14% → 38%, APAC 4% → 17%. At AppDynamics I built EMEA from 6 people to 360 across 16 countries. If the next board conversation is “when do we do [this region] properly”, I've been there, done it.
Exit readiness, M&A and diligence
I've seen IPO Readiness up close, been part of a major GTM integration with AppDynamics/Cisco and been on the buying side with Unmind/Frankie Health - where the acquired product now accounts for over 80% of ARR. The board often focus on the buy or sale. I've got eyes on the integration - the bit where the value quietly goes missing.
Commercial and go-to-market effectiveness
A 400% increase in EMEA pipeline at AppDynamics, big-deal penetration up 260%, and pipeline-to-visible-opportunity conversion from 33% to 60%. As Regional CMO before that, $260m+ in marketing-sourced pipeline and $90m+ closed. Most growth plans a board is asked to approve rest on a funnel nobody has checked.
AI, honestly
No lecture. I run my own practice on an AI system I built myself, and at Unmind automation was part of how the burn came down — not just a strategy slide. What I'll bring to your board is the operator's question: where could you get more creative, what's just for show, is there real ROI here and will this improve the experience of customers or your team.
Where I'd sit on your committees
Remuneration and People — a walk in the park
I've built exec teams, run significant restructures, operated inside a board-approval threshold for senior packages, and designed the accountability model that pay is supposed to reward. I know what a comp decision does to the room three months later.
360 View - From product through marketing, GTM and CS
Build a product that works then sell it to customers. Ideally delight them, at minimum provide ROI. Easy right? Not always. I've worked in hypergrowth, with mission critical software and through the fights that come when you lose Product Market Fit. I get the playbooks, know the questions and can provide guidance on the moves.
Glue for the board - Bridge for the business
I know first hand how important it is for the board to be a team, and for the business and board to be in sync. My superpower is being the connective tissue. Connecting the dots, creating alignment and making people work together so the work works. A lost art. Your business deserves board meetings that are constructive, useful and decisive for all shareholders.
The seat is new. The room isn't.
This would be my first formal non-executive appointment.
I've written the board pack and stood behind it, quarter after quarter, and been recognised by that board for raising the bar on operational excellence and leadership alignment. I've taken board and investor scrutiny on proposals that were well outside the room's comfort zone. I've run the board-approval process on senior remuneration, sat inside a Series C governance structure, and been the executive a board relied on to tell them what was really happening rather than what was on the slide.
What I bring is the memory of being on the receiving end. It makes for better questions, and for a chair who knows exactly what a badly run board meeting costs the business in the week that follows.
How I work on a board
Straight and kind, with the ultimate goal of making things work better.
Prepared, not performative. I read the pack before the meeting and send my questions ahead. Board time is for decisions, not for me catching up out loud.
The CEO's sparring partner, not their supervisor. I've been the number two. I know the difference between a useful challenge and a public interrogation, and I know exactly how the second one feels.
Straight with the founder, straight with the investors. No back-channel. If I'm going to say it in the room, they'll have heard it from me first.
I'll ask about the thing nobody's put on the agenda. So often the thing that helps things slot into place. Pattern recognition matched with spooky intuition.
Clear on the line. Non-executive means non-executive. If what you want is someone in the business, say so - I do that too, and it's a different conversation.
Where I fit
- Stage:
- Seed to Series C, founder-led, institutionally backed.
- Sector:
- B2B SaaS, health-tech and mental health, workplace and HR tech.
- Geography:
- UK and EMEA-headquartered, usually with US ambition. I've built for US-headquartered businesses from this side of the Atlantic twice, and moved a revenue base across the Atlantic once.
- The board itself:
- Where the independent seat is a real seat, and where the voice at the table is something you want rather than something you're evidencing.
Three ways to work with your board
Independent Chair
Founder-led boards from Series A where the CEO needs a genuine counterpart and the board needs a cadence it can trust.
Chairing the board, and owning the rhythm between meetings — the standing agenda, a pack that lands early enough to be read, the pre-calls that surface disagreement before it hits the room, and the CEO conversation that has nowhere else to go. Investor relationships managed as relationships, not reporting lines.
Non-Executive Director
Boards adding an operator's voice alongside the investor seats.
Board and committee work, plus direct CEO access between meetings. Usually on the operating model, org design, exec team performance and the commercial questions that don't fit neatly into a board pack.
Board Advisor
Founders who want the input before the formal seat.
Regular sessions and a phone that gets answered. No statutory role, less paperwork.
On the money: every engagement is scoped to the stage of the business. Fees are cash, paid quarterly, outside IR35 via my limited company, with equity alongside - weighted more that way at earlier stages. A board seat carries personal liability and a real duty, and it's priced accordingly. D&O cover and a deed of indemnity are conditions, not negotiations.
The short version
If you have to describe me to someone else, use this.
Nobody wants to write your candidate summary for you, so here's mine. Nick it — it's yours.
Amber Coster is a Chief Operating Officer who has spent over a decade running the inside of fast-scaling B2B technology businesses, and is building a portfolio of non-executive and advisory work alongside a fractional COO practice.
Most recently COO at Unmind, the enterprise workplace mental health platform, she took the business from Series B scrappiness to Series C maturity — reducing monthly operating burn by 58% with the organisation intact and still growing, and shifting the revenue base from a UK business to a global one, with the US moving from 14% to 38%. She was at the heart of the acquisition of Frankie Health, a product that now accounts for over 80% of ARR, and reset the culture from clan-oriented to performance-led against the OCAI benchmark, closing a 10-point gap between the experienced and desired culture and lifting commercial accountability by 42%.
Before Unmind she was the founding EMEA leadership hire at ClickUp, through a 233% surge in regional demand and the shift from product-led growth to enterprise sales. Earlier, at AppDynamics, she built EMEA from six people to 360 across 16 countries as Regional COO — growing pipeline 400%, leading the IPO-readiness programme across sales, risk and operations, and staying through the $3.7bn Cisco acquisition and the integration that followed. She began her career at NM Rothschild, winding down a defined benefit pension scheme.
She is a natural fit for GTM advice, culture, people and remuneration committees. She founded Balpro, has spoken on workplace mental health for the BBC, Times Radio and the Evening Standard, and is a former SHOUT UK crisis volunteer. She lives in London with her husband and two daughters.
If you need it in a different shape for a specific board, email me and I'll write it — that's a ten-minute job and it's not your problem to solve.
We might not be the perfect match
You want to tick a box. If the independent seat exists to make the cap table look grown-up or 'more diverse'. Time is precious, I'm here to partner with amazing people who want help and impact.
Equity only. Female NEDs with technology experience earn 33% less than their male counterparts. I want to help be the change.
The board is really a management meeting. If the founder wants operating help, say so. I'm happy to help with this too but let me sell you the right vs sit in the wrong chair for a year.
Building a board?
If you're a founder adding your first independent director, a VC putting a board together, or a search partner with a mandate open — I'd like the conversation.
Currently taking up to two board seats alongside my fractional practice.