Introduction. The role and importance of the board of directors in the strategic process has long been considered in practice and in corporate law legislation. Theoretical analysis. The ambiguous distribution of the role and degree of the senior corporate management participation made it possible to identify four models of the board of directors’ participation in the strategic process, which reflect the primacy of the board of directors and the primacy of management in the strategic process. Еmpirical analysis. In the context of sanctions restrictions and the introduction of sectoral and personal sanctions against Russian companies and members of the board of directors and management, the role and importance of the board in the strategic process should change dramatically, since in these conditions the work of the board of directors becomes more complicated and its workload increases. The article proposes a symbiotic model of the board of directors’ active participation in strategic management. Results. A necessary condition for applying the symbiotic model of active participation of the board of directors in the main stages of the strategic process and realizing its advantages is that the joint-stock company has a balanced board of directors, the members of which have competencies in the field of strategic management. Such a council, in the context of sectoral and personal sanctions, should bear increased responsibility for the course of the strategic process, and the advantages of the symbiotic model make it possible to implement a differentiated approach to the participation of the council in strategic management, identify possible areas for improving the situation and fill the formal aspects of the council’s activities with new content.