On being invited to the Board of a public company

It's interesting reading some of the threads in various professional discussion forums concerned about getting your first board seat. Certainly, as many respondents have alluded, you probably don't as much 'get' a board seat as get offered one. 


Personally I never viewed my career as about being a board member. Instead, I have considered myself as a bit of a technical specialist with some international exposure. Yet this seems to have been what the chairman, whom I met on a previous occasion, of a company about to list in London was looking for. 


To the point, being invited to take up a board seat in a new public company is cause for considerable professional excitement, and yet also trepidation. Professional excitement because you get to apply your skills at the highest level, and trepidation because it's not easy being a company director these days because of increasing corporate governance requirements which can be quite tricky to navigate. In this case, an additional challenge exists in that the company's head office is half way around the world, which will make for some quite considerable commuting pressures!


The point is, is the professional excitement and the challenge worth more than the inconvenience? In this case, I would argue yes, and as a result, I have accepted the invite, and will now follow due process over the next few months as the company lists on the London Stock Exchange.