EY's Center for Board Matters' third annual "Independent directors: new class of 2018" reveals the results of its analysis of the attributes and roles of the directors newly elected in 2018 to Fortune 100 boards, with relevant year-over-year comparisons.
Noteworthy key findings include:
- 71% of companies added at least one new independent director. Of these, 27% added two or more.
- International business ranked #1 in terms of skills and expertise of the incoming class, followed by corporate finance/accounting, and then industry expertise.
- New directors were most commonly assigned to the Audit Committee (31%), followed by Nom/Gov (30%), and then Compensation (23%).
- 51% of the new class came from non-CEO backgrounds, including other executive roles (35%) and non-corporate environments (16%).
- About 40% of the 2018 class was female. Of those, over 70% had non-corporate backgrounds; half were first-time public company directors; and 45% represented non-CEO current or former executives. Just 21% reflected the traditional current/former CEO nominee model.
- An ongoing shift toward younger directors - with 58% of the new class under the age of 60 and 14% under the age of 50 - compared to 51% and 8%, respectively, in 2017
See also "Corporate boards casting wider net when seeking new directors" (Pensions & Investments), "More Firms Add IT Chiefs to Boardroom" ( WSJ), "Companies With Tech Expertise on the Board See Higher Revenue Growth, MIT Study Finds," EY's Class of 2017 report, and numerous additional benchmarking and other resources on our Board Composition, and Board Succession/Refreshment, and Board Diversity pages.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!