Who this is for
You have built a board portfolio over time, often including one or more chair roles. The types of challenge differ at this level. What boards are expected to oversee has expanded significantly. Succession, for the board and for your own seat, is easy to postpone. And your seniority steadily reduces the people you can ask for advice.
What you will find here... coming soon
- Information to help you stay relevant as the agenda expands: AI oversight and assurance, cyber resilience, climate transition and nature-related reporting, geopolitical risk, supply chain exposure, conduct, and culture.
- Guidance on overseeing risk the board does not itself hold the expertise for.
- Support for another NED joining the board, including what makes induction successful rather than simply a process to follow.
- Advice on finding a successor, whether for your own seat or for others on the board.
- Connections with NED peers working through the same questions in other markets.
Not quite you?
In your first board years? Go to Early-stage NEDs.
Serving on a charity or non-profit board? Go to Not-for-profit.
Join the community! Always free. It only takes a name and an email address.
Questions people ask
How do NEDs stay current as the agenda keeps expanding?
Board education, specialist advisers, deep-dive sessions, and time with management outside the meeting help you to stay up to date. Acquiring depth in one or two areas, with enough breadth to ask the right question in other areas, is more realistic than trying to follow everything.
How does a board oversee a risk that no one on the board fully understands?
The best ways to fill this shortfall include setting the questions the board expects management to answer, commissioning independent assurance, and being explicit that the gap exists rather than deferring quietly to whoever sounds most confident.
What is the most useful thing an experienced NED can do for a new one?
The whole board benefits overall by helping to effectively onboard new NEDs. Induction for a newcomer should include an understanding about how this particular board works, through details such as where decisions actually get made, which papers matter, and how the chair prefers to be approached. Most inductions cover the organisation and skip the board, which is an oversight.
How do I find a successor for my seat?
Raise succession for your own role with the chair well before your final term ends. Describe the contribution you have made, rather than your own profile, and keep the search wider than the people you already know.
How should a board plan its own succession?
Overall board succession should be planned alongside a skills matrix and staggered terms, so several long-serving members do not leave together. Chair succession usually needs the longest lead time.