Leveraging data from PwC’s annual corporate directors’ survey, "Board Effectiveness: A Survey of the C-Suite" from PwC and The Conference Board reports the results of a fall 2025 survey of 524 public company C-suite executives (including 17% GCs/CLOs) regarding the performance of their boards of directors and, where applicable, compares those views to directors’ perspectives from PwC’s 2025 Annual Corporate Directors Survey (which we reported on here).
Notably, respondents reported varying levels of interaction with the board, with just 10% indicating they attend every board meeting, 17% attending most meetings, and 42% attending some meetings, while 13% interact primarily through committee meetings, 6% rarely have direct interaction, and 11% are members of the board. The report repeatedly notes that executives’ perceptions of board effectiveness varied significantly depending on their degree of board exposure.
Board exposureÞperceptions—Notably, respondent executives in the aggregate gave directors much higher marks compared to prior years on their boards’ overall effectiveness — 41% in 2025 compared to 35% in 2024 and 29% in 2021. Importantly, however, the report notes significant variation in views depending on respondents’ level of interaction with the board, with 95% of executives who are members of the board rating board effectiveness as “excellent” or “good,” compared to just 17% among executives who rarely interact with the board, as shown here:
Effectiveness considerations—Interestingly, while nearly half of respondents identified directors serving on too many other boards as limiting board effectiveness, comparatively few (9%) cited insufficient time to evaluate issues as hindering board decision-making. These results may suggest that respondents view “overboarding” concerns as relating less to meeting-time constraints and more to broader concerns regarding director focus, responsiveness, preparedness, or capacity to keep pace with rapidly evolving issues.
Similarly, while only 10% cited lack of access to the right information as hampering board decision-making and only 11% indentified enhanced or streamlined board materials as a step management could take to improve board effectiveness, respondents most frequently identified greater transparency regarding key risks or internal challenges (32%) and clearer follow-up on incorporation of board input (31%) as actions management could take to improve board effectiveness.
Board composition—As in prior years, executives’ views regarding desired board expertise differed significantly from directors’ own priorities for board refreshment. Whereas directors responding to PwC’s 2025 Annual Corporate Directors Survey identified industry knowledge, financial acumen, and operational experience as the top areas of expertise they planned to add, executives responding to the C-suite survey most frequently identified environmental/sustainability expertise (32%), AI/GenAI expertise (26%), and regulatory/public policy expertise (26%) as priorities for board composition over the next 12 months.
Board assessments—The report also identified significant executive interest in improving board assessment processes. All but 10% of respondents indicated there was room to improve their boards’ assessment processes, with executives most frequently identifying stronger linkage between assessment results and succession planning (56%), commitment to post-assessment actions (41%), and use of individual director assessments (35%) as ways to improve effectiveness.
AI oversight—AI oversight also emerged as a significant theme, with nearly all executives surveyed (99%) indicating boards should use AI in some capacity in their oversight role, compared to only 35% of directors in PwC’s 2025 Annual Corporate Directors Survey reporting that their boards are currently using AI in oversight activities. Executives most frequently identified governance process enhancement, monitoring emerging trends, and peer benchmarking as areas where AI could improve board effectiveness.
See PwC’s online takeaways here and access additional resources on our Board/Governance Practices page.