What belongs on page one of a Thursday pack
12 March 2026 · Nino Beridze
Page one is not a contents list. It is the three movements the chair will be asked about before anyone sits down.
A pack that opens with a contents page has already wasted a minute. The chair is holding coffee. Someone will ask about margin, cash, or a receivable that aged over ninety days. Page one should answer those three before the agenda is read.
In Tbilisi sittings we see the same mistake: last month’s P&L copied as a screenshot, then a logo, then a map. None of that is page one. Page one is a small table or a short set of bars, a comparison to budget and to last year, and three sentences that a company secretary can read aloud if asked.
The test we use in the studio is simple. If the chair can close the pack after page one and still know whether the month was acceptable, the page is doing its job. If she has to turn to page six to find cash, the order is wrong.
We keep the source line at the foot, even on page one. Directors have started asking, in the last two years, which close the page is from. A sitting in May with an April date in the footer avoids a useless argument.
What we take off page one: headcount unless the sitting is about people; decorative comparison to “peer companies” unless the chair named the peers in a minute; any forecast that finance has not signed. Those belong later, or not at all.
If you are commissioning a first pack, bring the last agenda and mark the three questions you know will come. We will argue with you if you try to put twelve of them on the opening page. That argument is part of the sitting.