Purpose: This study aims to examine the core challenges facing company secretaries in a two-tier board context. This study focuses on the key factors contributing to these challenges and how company secretaries can effectively address them. Design/methodology/approach: An analysis of the narratives provided by 291 Dutch company secretaries in response to a series of open-ended questionnaire questions led to insights into the key challenges company secretaries face in their day-to-day work. Findings: Company secretaries perceive a myriad of factors contributing to pressures on their time, the need to work for multiple organizational bodies and the processing of information. They believe process interventions and social interventions are needed to alleviate these issues. Research limitations/implications: The research highlights the need to deeply study boards from a holistic and systems point of view that recognizes the various actors, such as the company secretary, and their relationships in a boardroom context. Furthermore, the research shows how the two-tier board model may complicate these relational dynamics owing to the formal separation of decision management from decision control. Practical implications: This study identifies various pragmatic ways to address the core challenges facing company secretaries so as to improve their contributions to decision-making at the apex of organizations. Originality/value: This study sheds light on an important organizational actor (i.e. the company secretary) that hitherto has received scant attention in the governance literature.