On the heels of Chair White's December Keynote Address at the 2015 AICPA Conference (previously reported on here) that included cautionary remarks about audit committee composition and the CAQ's recently released "Audit Committee of the Future" report (reported on here), this new Heidrick & Struggles piece, "Life in the Hot Seat: Filling the Role of Audit Committee Chair" is worth noting for its guidance as to critical chair attributes, as well as related statistics and analysis that include:
• Three years - on average - elapse between joining the board and assuming the role of audit chair, giving the new board member time to get acclimated to the board and the company.
• Only if the individual has previously served as audit chair for a publicly traded company is this transition shorter.
• Once in place, audit committee chairs serve for an average of about five years or more. This relatively lengthy tenure suggests that once boards find a qualified, high-performing chair, they prefer to keep that person in place as long as possible.
See also Deloitte's "Successful Onboarding for New Audit Committee Members."