One board deck, redacted per director, with a version you can pull back
Conflicted directors never see the M&A slides. The pack cannot Open before Monday at 6 a.m. When the corrected version lands, the old one dies in every inbox it ever reached.
The situation
The quarterly board pack has slides some directors must not see: a possible acquisition where one director has a conflict, and compensation committee material meant only for the committee. It also goes through three drafts, and every draft lives forever in eight inboxes and a couple of personal Dropboxes. The corporate secretary currently makes separate decks and sends separate emails, then prays.
The recipe
- Desktop appOpen the finished deck on macOS or Windows and choose Layer Bake.
- Desktop appMake slides 14 to 19 (the acquisition) a layer, granted to every director except the conflicted one. Make slides 20 to 23 (comp committee) a second layer, granted to the three committee members.
- Desktop appGrant the whole deck to all eight directors plus general counsel
ana.gc@co.com. Set the earliest Open to Monday 6:00 a.m. and a time to live through the end of the meeting week. Bake once. - Any channelSend the one
Q3_board_pack.pptx.caketo the whole board on Friday. Nobody can Open it until Monday, and when they do, each sees their own version. - PortalA number was wrong on slide 9. Bake v2, send it, and Burn v1. Every copy of v1, everywhere, stops Opening. The Portal shows you who Opened what, and when.
What each reader sees
Most directors
The full deck with the acquisition slides. Comp committee slides show as redacted.
The conflicted director
The same file, with slides 14 to 19 redacted. A real deck that opens in PowerPoint, no gaps to explain.
Comp committee
Everything, including the committee slides.
The old draft
Will not Open for anyone, in any inbox, on any device.
Why it works
- One file, one send, many views. Redaction is enforced by encryption, not by a black box someone can remove.
- The embargo and the time to live travel inside the file. So does Burn: a recalled version is gone even from copies you never knew about.
- The audit trail is per reader. You know who Opened the pack before the meeting and who did not.