While research and practice focused a lot on women’s participation in corporate boards, their influence on new venture boards remains underexplored. We used a qualitative gender intervention analysis methodology to understand role expectations, the impact of women’s board entry, emerging role misalignment and how women may navigate evoked stereotype threat to drive productive change. Our analysis revealed sets of characteristics the ideal board member should fulfil and how these sets are different for women. The ideal new venture board member characteristics are male gender stereotyped, making women incapable to fulfil these expectations. We identify seven coping strategies women engage in to compensate stereotype threat which is triggered by these gendered expectations. We integrate our findings into a process model to understand how the entry of women may mitigate misaligned board role expectations and support board dynamics and societal change.
