Meeting & Chat Zoom Workplace How-to

How to Use Zoom to Securely Host a Virtual Board Meeting

Need to take your board meeting virtual? Here are guidelines on how to meet securely, maintain compliance & host a productive virtual board meeting on Zoom.

4 min read

Updated on April 26, 2022

Published on May 05, 2020

Securely host your virtual board meeting on Zoom

In this blog

01 Best practices for securely hosting a Zoom board meeting - Jumplink to Best practices for securely hosting a Zoom board meeting
02 In-meeting tips and tricks - Jumplink to In-meeting tips and tricks
03 Get Zooming today - Jumplink to Get Zooming today

Kelly Steckelberg

Chief Financial Officer

A webinar attendee recently inquired on our “Ask Eric Anything” session whether Zoom is safe to use for an organization’s virtual board meetings. The answer is yes! Zoom has various mechanisms in place to securely host your online events, including board meetings for public companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and other entities. The Zoom platform helps enable an interactive and secure meeting experience and supports industry and organizational compliance mandates being met. In fact, we’ve used Zoom to successfully host our own board meetings for years, so we wanted to share some best practices for anyone considering Zoom for their next board meeting. Here are some guidelines on how to meet securely, maintain compliance, and execute a productive, interactive board meeting over Zoom.

Require a password

It’s always a good idea to secure any meeting with a password so that only invited guests with the password can join your virtual board meeting. Passwords can be set for individual meetings or can be enabled at the user, group, or account level for all meetings. We’ve recently updated our password settings and requirements, so be sure to check out our support article.

Require authentication

When you allow only authenticated users to join, they must have a Zoom account and be signed in to join a meeting. Authentication helps to ensure only authorized attendees are able to join your Zoom board meeting.

Require registration

With Zoom, you can require guests to register in advance with their name, email, and additional information. This provides a layer of security for your board meeting without mandating participants to have a Zoom account. Get step-by-step instructions for enabling meeting registration on our support site.

Enable Waiting Rooms

The Waiting Room is a great way to protect any meeting because it’s a virtual holding area that prevents people from joining until they are admitted. Meeting hosts and co-hosts can admit everyone from the waiting room all at once or individually. For board members who wish to dial in by phone, obtain the phone number they’ll be using ahead of time. Hosts and co-hosts can only view dial-in users by their phone numbers, and this way, you can let in from the Waiting Room only the dial-in users you were expecting.

Add watermarks

Hosts can enable two types of Zoom watermarks, to help protect the privacy of confidential information shared during your board meeting:

Image watermarks on a shared screen superimpose an image, consisting of a portion of a meeting participant’s own email address, onto the shared content they are viewing and the video of the person who is sharing their screen.
Audio watermarks embed a user's info as an inaudible mark in any offline recording of a meeting. If the audio file is shared without permission, Zoom can help identify which participant recorded the meeting.

Lock the meeting

After everyone invited has joined and the meeting has started, don’t forget to lock the meeting to prevent anyone else from joining. You can find this within the Security icon in your meeting controls.

Once you’ve confirmed the attendees, provided the meeting agenda, and designated someone to record board meeting minutes, it’s time to fully leverage your virtual board meeting software. Zoom provides great in-meeting features to make a board meeting more interactive and productive. Here are some capabilities that will help you make the most of the time with your board:

Screen sharing ensures everyone can view content in real-time and helps those taking minutes
Annotation allows participants to make notes or comments on a shared screen
In-meeting chat allows participants to share additional links and files
Polling is great for asking group questions and capturing live feedback
Raise Hand helps maintain order and ensure everyone gets a chance to speak
Reactions allow quick nonverbal feedback right on the screen

And while some organizations have policies against recording their board meetings, Zoom does have local and cloud recording capabilities if they’re needed. You also have additional participant management controls within the Security icon, just in case you need them.

Want additional insights on how to run a board meeting using Zoom? Contact a Zoom product specialist today to get a personalized demo of the platform.