What are boards looking for? A lot of different things.

I was talking to a woman in our network last week, who said she heard “boards are not looking for marketing expertise.” Given this has been her background, it caused her to question whether she was in fact a marketable board candidate. It’s not uncommon to think of board members as solely current and former CEOs and CFOs. And while these roles are certainly valid examples, they are by no means representative of the broader market.

Here’s the reality: boards are actually looking for a lot of different competencies. 

Remember, boards are ecosystems, made up of sitting CEOs/co-founders/executive board members, investors, and independent directors. So, when a board is seeking one or more board members to join them, they typically assess skills evident in current board members to identify the gaps they want to fill as they think about company strategy for the next few years. 

Many smaller private boards are lacking even a single independent board member and therefore will often seek out an operator or former operator with a skillset that complements the needs of the business/CEO given that the rest of the board is made up of investors.

To begin to illustrate the variety of skills being sought after for boards, we pulled the top 10 competencies requested by our partners and network for board openings in 2024: 

1. Scaling

2. Software as a Service (SaaS)

3. Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

4. Technology

5. Audit Chair

6. Chief Financial Officer (CFO)/Finance

7. Go-to-Market (GTM)

8. Healthcare

9. Marketing / Marketing Strategy

10. Business to Business (B2B)

While these are not exhaustive or exclusive, the top competencies are a helpful summary. Some, like “scaling”, can be interpreted broadly. Scaling can refer to growing a team from x to y, scaling revenue from x to y, broadening expansion into a country or countries, taking companies public, taking companies private, acquiring and incorporating companies through M and A. 

It’s important to highlight that board members serve in a capacity well beyond the original skill set that brought them to the interview. Therefore, it’s critically important for those of you seeking board roles to continue to translate your executive experience broadly. 

When seeking an independent board opportunity, companies are looking across any combination of six dimensions of expertise. These are, in no particular order:

• Industry expertise

• Functional expertise

• Business model expertise

• Customer segment expertise

• Scaling and growth trajectories

• ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance)

We built the six dimensions from the thousands of board requests we’ve helped over the years. 

When describing yourself as a potential board member, remember to broaden your perspective beyond what you were directly responsible for as an executive, and also include what you had exposure to within that executive experience. For example, perhaps you did not lead a public to private process, but simply having been an executive within that process, you have gained knowledge and experience that can be leveraged in a board role. 

If you are seeking board roles, take the time to digest this perspective and reflect it back to your broader executive experience. If you are looking for an independent board member, reach out - we are ready to help make introductions to the thousands of highly qualified executives in our network. 

Jocelyn’s TEDx talk | Why private companies matter | Our Study

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