Leadership
The Directors You Need (But Can’t Find)
Traditional board recruitment is failing in an age of disruption. Can it be fixed?
October 23, 2025
How to Find Good Directors In an Age of Disruption
The job posting doesn't exist, but if it did, it might read something like this: "Seeking 8 to 12 visionary leaders to govern a multibillion-dollar organization through artificial-intelligence disruption, geopolitical chaos, and economic volatility. Must play well with others. Prior experience with any of these challenges is preferred, but quick learning is essential."
Welcome to board refreshment in 2025, where the stakes have never been higher and the playbook keeps changing in real time. The country-club approach to board composition—find successful executives, add familiar faces, ensure everyone gets along—has become as obsolete as the fax machines that once cluttered corporate offices.
Today's optimal boards function more like jazz ensembles than classical quartets: Each member brings a distinct instrument, but everyone knows how to improvise when the music changes. But experts say finding directors who can handle ambiguity and adapt in that manner is increasingly difficult. “Building a board today is like putting together a tapestry,” says Tierney Remick, co-leader of Korn Ferry’s CEO and Board Services practice. “It’s intricate and complex.” Here’s a look at three ways to ensure director refreshment meets the moment.
1 Look For “T-shaped” Talent
One of the biggest challenges of board composition is finding directors who are “T-shaped”—who have deep expertise in one area, but a broad, cross-functional understanding of how things work in an organization. “We often think of CEOs as being enterprise leaders,” says Jane Edison Stevenson, global vice chair of Korn Ferry’s Board and CEO Services practice. “But the reality is, you’re even more of an enterprise leader when you become a board member.”
What this means is moving beyond traditional director role descriptions like "financial expert" or "former CEO" toward a more nuanced understanding of how different competencies and traits translate to effectiveness around the boardroom table.
2 View the Board as Scaffolding For the CEO
Despite term and age limits becoming more commonplace in board refreshment discussions, many companies still cling to familiar faces. “It’s the devil you know,” says Claudia Pici Morris, CEO and Board Succession Solutions Leader of North America. But in today’s world, boards that retain directors who’ve been out of the business sphere for extended periods of time don’t serve companies—or the CEO—well. Management, and particularly the chief executive, need current, dynamic perspectives to help them make decisions quickly and execute as seamlessly as possible.
One way to think about what’s needed on a board is to reconceptualize the entity as scaffolding around the CEO, Pici Morris says. “That way, directors can support CEOs in areas in which they need the most help.”
3 Don’t Mistake Experience for Intrinsic Capabilities
Sometimes the best candidates on paper aren’t necessarily the best directors for what an organization needs during times of uncertainty. Instead, experts say intrinsic traits—being able to hear peers and synthesize various perspectives in a way that helps management make decisions, for example—are more important than how many boards a director has served on. "The things people are looking for intrinsically aren't necessarily captured in experience,” says Sarah Oliva, a principal in Korn Ferry’s Board Effectiveness practice. “Someone who has a mindset of curiosity and is nimble enough to thrive in an uncertain marketplace is what’s needed.” Adds Pici Morris: “The ability to quickly interpret and understand trends has become so vital to companies. Just looking at the matrix with experience isn’t enough anymore.”
Explore more tips on successful board refreshment.
Related insights
