Ever thought of being a Company Director? What’s stopping you?

As a partner in an executive search firm, I’ve found that the path to the boardroom is not well understood or particularly well navigated, with questions regularly asked by people interested in getting on boards including: 

• What does a Non Executive Director role look like?
• How do you find Non Executive Director roles?
• How do you know if the role is right?

However, what is particularly intriguing is that there are so many talented, very experienced people out there (in particular women) who don’t even see themselves as ‘board material’.  

When asking accomplished, business savvy women the question: “Have you ever thought about being on a board?”, a surprisingly common response is “Who me?”, closely followed by some derivative of, “I’ve never really thought about it” or “I don’t think I’ve got the right experience”.

And why is this response so biased towards women, when so many men are likely to ‘give it a go’, irrespective of whether or not they actually have the skills required to be a Company Director? Let’s save the last part of that debate for another time as today we’d like to ask… 

Why not you?

The notion that diverse boards create better companies is well documented, and many agree that board diversity is simply smart business. Indeed, diverse boards can offer a depth and breadth of insight, perspective and experience to CEOs that non-diverse boards simply cannot.

This notion is driving change in the make up of boards. In 2015, the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) called for all boards to ensure at least 30 per cent of their directors are female and urged S&P/ASX 200 companies to meet this target by the end of 2018. And on the 8th March this year the Minister for Women, Senator The Hon. Michaelia Cash announced a new target of 50 per cent women on all Australian Government boards. “We need to lead by example in order to drive change in corporate Australia,” she said. State governments have adopted similar targets.

What is it in you that a board could need? 

In general terms, there are five different board settings to consider: ASX or equivalent; Government/semi government; privately owned / Private Equity; not-for-profit / Charity; and local subsidiaries of multinationals. Ultimately, the role of a director is to monitor an organisation’s executive team and act as a reliable and effective advocate for its stakeholders. So boards need to be looking for directors who;

• Demonstrate that they have been successful in business
• Have a curious and enquiring mind
• Have deep, relevant experience
• Have gravitas
• Are financially literate / competent
• Possess wisdom
• Have an understanding of technology, particularly where disruption plays a part

If you find yourself ticking a few of those boxes, perhaps its time to see yourself as more ‘Board ready’ than you’ve previously given yourself credit.

So what are the next steps?

You might want to check out the Australian Institute of Company Directors’ website, or the Governance Institute, to see what sort of courses they offer.

Have a look at the Government’s websites, for example here or here, to see if you can make a difference to your state while developing your career.

Consider joining Women on Boards (WOB), an independent social enterprise that helps women leverage their professional skills and experience into non-executive-director and other board level roles.