Our Search Practice: Recruiting Board Members

We have had great success in recruiting board members for our clients. One big reason for this is because of our diverse corporate search practice and deep experience we have working with all the functions of our successful client

Recruiting Board Members

companies.  This, combined with serving on boards of private companies ourselves gives us the firsthand knowledge and experience on how to identify gaps in boards and what an ideal board member looks like.

The key to recruiting a successful board member is to understand the company, culture, current and future strategy.  Combine this with doing a board gap analysis to identify potential holes or soft spots in the current board will help identify what the next board member will need to have in their background to bring strategic value to the organization. We often find that boards have concentration in areas of board composition. This could take form in a concentration of board member ages, geographic location, functional expertise or industry knowledge, etc. A balanced or “diverse” board always delivers the best corporate governance and guidance.

We ideally bring forth candidates that are beyond what the company has recruited in the past (aim high!) and most likely are not known to anyone currently on the board. This brings deeper experience and fresh perspective to the board to stretch its capabilities and increase its effectiveness.

Compensation is also important and we often do a board compensation study to make sure our client is compensating their board members fairly and aligning compensation with company performance. While interest in joining a board is driven primarily by the people involved, challenges the company is facing and experience to be gained, compensation is a key factor in building and maintaining an effective board.

We cast a wide net to recruit people that bring real value to your board and your shareholders.