Board Chair Selection for Public Companies: Creating Value in a Complex World

The Evolving Role of the Board Chair

While the basic principle remains unchanged—the Chair runs the board while the CEO runs the company—today’s board Chairs are placing enhanced emphasis on the connection to their organisations. This connection spans the business model, operational challenges, strategic opportunities, and the company’s impact on society.

Modern Chairs continue to play a crucial role in three key areas: mentoring and coaching the CEO to achieve optimal outcomes, fostering board cohesion and effectiveness, and ensuring the board provides both robust support and effective oversight of management. This delicate balance requires a sophisticated set of skills that has become increasingly important in today’s complex business environment.

Navigating the Triple Challenge: Technology, Sustainability, and Activism

Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented acceleration of change, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and climate change. Board Chairs must ensure boards have sufficient expertise to provide effective oversight of management’s technical and digital strategies. Additionally, there’s an increasing focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, with investors and regulators paying close attention to sustainability targets and environmental concerns.

These 3 major forces are reshaping the board Chair’s role.

By proactively addressing these factors, boards can mitigate potential risks and even leverage activist pressure to enhance long-term value creation for the company and its shareholders.

The New Selection Paradigm

These challenges have driven a fundamental shift in how companies select their Chairs, leading to a more meritocratic, rigorous and transparent process.

This shift has opened opportunities for a more diverse range of candidates, including those with specialised expertise in emerging areas such as digital transformation, sustainability, and artificial intelligence. However, it has also raised the bar in terms of the skills and experiences required for the role. Today’s Chair must not only have a track record of leadership in public companies but also demonstrate the ability to build and manage a high-performing board that can effectively oversee and guide the organisation through turbulent times.

Key selection criteria have evolved to include:

Board diversity, too, has become a critical factor in driving organisational success. Chairs must lead efforts to increase diversity across various dimensions, including gender, ethnicity, age, and professional background. This involves not only setting diversity goals for board composition but also creating an inclusive culture where all directors feel valued and empowered to contribute.

Effective Chairs recognise that diversity goes beyond mere representation; it’s about leveraging diverse perspectives to enhance decision-making, drive innovation, and mitigate risks. By actively seeking out directors with varied experiences and viewpoints, Chairs can build boards that are better equipped to navigate complex challenges and identify new opportunities for growth.

Building the Board of Tomorrow

One of the Chair’s most critical responsibilities is ensuring balanced board composition. This extends beyond traditional skills matrices to encompass diversity across multiple dimensions: gender, ethnicity, age, professional background, and geographical expertise. Effective Chairs recognise that diversity isn’t just about representation—it’s about creating a board culture where diverse perspectives actively enhance decision-making and drive innovation.

The challenge of incorporating emerging expertise, particularly in areas like artificial intelligence and sustainability, has led to creative solutions. Rather than simply adding specialist directors, leading Chairs are focusing on finding board members who combine specific expertise with broader business acumen. This approach avoids creating “one-trick ponies” while ensuring the board has the necessary capabilities to oversee complex technical and environmental challenges.

Succession Planning and Continuous Development

Chair’s recognise that succession planning—both for their own role and for key executive positions—is an ongoing process rather than a periodic event. The Senior Independent Director (SID) typically leads Chair succession processes, creating an interesting dynamic where they must select their future superior. This process requires careful management of CEO input—while the incoming Chair and CEO must have workable chemistry, too much CEO influence can compromise the Chair’s independence.

Equally important is the Chair’s role in fostering continuous board development. As business environments become more complex, Chairs must create cultures of ongoing learning, ensuring their boards stay current with emerging trends and best practices. This might involve regular training sessions, exposure to new technologies, or deep dives into evolving ESG standards.

Additionally, Chairs should lead by example in embracing new learning opportunities and staying informed about emerging trends and best practices in corporate governance. By prioritising board development, Chairs can ensure that their organisations benefit from the latest insights and approaches to effective governance.

The evolution of the board Chair role in public companies reflects the broader changes in the business landscape. As organisations grapple with rapid technological advancements, increasing regulatory scrutiny, and shifting societal expectations, the demand for Chairs who can navigate these complexities and drive value has never been greater.

The modern board Chair must be a strategic thinker, a skilled communicator, and a guardian of corporate purpose and values. Additionally, they must ensure the board provides appropriate technology oversight of executive implementation, sustainability leadership, and stakeholder engagement skills. Such capabilities allow the Chair to build boards that are not only diverse in composition but also dynamic in operation, capable of adapting to rapid change while maintaining strong oversight.

Yet, directors continue to resist adding narrow areas of expertise to their boards, instead prioritising traditional skillsets over the next year, with financial, industry and operational expertise topping the list.⁵

The most successful Chairs will be those who can balance multiple competing demands: maintaining independence while building strong CEO relationships, ensuring proper oversight while supporting innovation, and delivering shareholder returns while meeting broader societal obligations. For organisations seeking their next board Chair, the focus should be on finding candidates who combine relevant experience with the adaptability and strategic insight needed to navigate an increasingly complex business landscape.

In this evolving landscape of a board Chair’s priorities, the right Chair can create significant value by building effective boards, supporting strong executive leadership, and ensuring their organisations are well-positioned for long-term success in a rapidly changing world.