Retiring the Board Pack

These towering documents were the legacy of the Haloid Xerox Model 914 photocopier. Launched in 1959, the 914 became so successful that "Xerox" soon became synonymous with document duplication, prompting Haloid to rename itself the Xerox Corporation.

For nearly four decades, Xerox machines evolved in speed and capability, enabling company secretaries to compile ever-larger board packs—each of which board members were expected to read in full.

The Beginning of the End for Board Packs

The end of this paper-heavy tradition began with John Warnock, the inventor of a new digital document format: the PDF (Portable Document Format)

It wasn’t until the U.S. Internal Revenue Service adopted PDFs for tax documentation that the format truly took off.

Liberated from paper by the PDF, company secretaries could now compile extensive packs without ecological guilt. Unfortunately, this only led to longer documents. While some trees were spared, directors remained buried under biblical volumes of supporting documents and annexures.

PDF Board Packs Are a Security Risk

From a governance and security standpoint, PDF board packs present numerous problems.

Once an agenda is compiled into a PDF and approved by the chairperson, both confidentiality and control begin to unravel. These documents often include sensitive information: minutes, resolutions, sub-committee reports, policy changes, M&A activity, and resignations—essentially a treasure trove of confidential data.

And how is this sensitive content typically distributed? Not via a secure, monitored platform—but rather attached to a group email and cc’ed to all directors.

This opens the door to countless risks. For instance:

• A director downloads a copy to a shared family computer.

• The company secretary leaves the file on her desktop, accessible to anyone.

• A director forwards it externally, intentionally or by mistake.

• Another prints it and leaves it on their desk for weeks.

You can probably think of examples of your own.

The Problem with PDF Passwords

“But what about password protection?” one might ask.

Sadly, it’s a false sense of security. A quick online search for “pdf remove password” yields thousands of results. Even worse, directors frequently forget their passwords, leading secretaries to strip them out altogether.

Replacing the Board Pack

Today, modern board portals offer a secure digital environment for building and sharing agendas along with their supporting documents—completely removing the PDF from the equation.

Active Meeting Surfaces: A PDF-Free Future

Several forward-thinking board portal vendors now offer virtual meeting platforms that disintermediate the PDF and traditional board packs altogether. While PDFs still serve occasional roles—like printing or archiving minutes—they’re no longer central to the meeting experience.

However, not all providers are ready for this change. Many legacy platforms are built on outdated technology that lacks real-time screen updates, requiring users to refresh manually.

By contrast, platforms like Azeus Convene have released fully digital systems, such as their eAGM solution—likely a full rewrite built on modern technology.

BoardCloud’s own eAGM alternative is its Active Meeting system, included with all versions of its board portal. Active Meeting provides a fully collaborative meeting environment, connecting all participants on a real-time interactive surface.

Welcome to the New Era of Meetings

Modern virtual meeting platforms now offer an extensive range of interactive features that cater to virtual, hybrid, and in-room meetings:

Pre-Meeting Functions:

• Collaborative agenda creation and approval

• Dynamic agenda building, with live additions and updates to items and supporting documents

In-Meeting Functions:

• Real-time attendance tracking

• Live voting with instant results

• Dynamic agenda updates in real-time

• Item-specific commenting and note-taking

• In-meeting chat functionality

• Live document signing

Surely, it’s time to retire the board pack—once and for all.

[Updated: May 2025]