Board Directors: Headed for the Exits?

While most people are clinging to their jobs, there’s one group that’s heading for the exits in record numbers: board directors. 

In a year in which layoffs, automation, and job-hugging defined the labor market, board directors stood out as a surprising exception. Public filings show that in 2025, almost four times as many board directors of major firms left as in the previous year. A total of 391 directors stepped down in 2025, more than 300 of them from boards of S&P 500 companies. By comparison, just over 100 directors left in 2024. Anthony Goodman, head of the Board Effectiveness practice at Korn Ferry, says a perfect storm of disruption, instability, financial pressure, and investor scrutiny is leading directors to reconsider board life. “Some directors don’t have the appetite to deal with a continuous diet of stress and uncertainty.” 

The mass exodus is surprising, given the tendency of directors to serve for too long. When they overstay, they prevent boards from bringing in candidates with new skills and experiences to help guide firms through today’s challenges. But Goodman says AI is so transformative that “a lot of directors are asking themselves if they are still relevant to the new age we are entering.” 

The questioning goes both ways, with boards evaluating the performance of directors and accelerating turnover proactively, says Joe Griesedieck, a managing director in the Board and CEO Services practice at Korn Ferry. Boards have instituted or amended their bylaws regarding term and age limits, diversity, and skills disclosures, among other measures. And if it isn’t boards themselves, it’s activist investors, who again launched a record number of campaigns and wins last year, most of them involving board seats. Some of these victories were made possible by the introduction of the universal proxy card, which enables shareholders to vote for or against individual directors, rather than an entire corporate or activist slate. “Investors and boards are being more diligent in weighing a director’s skills and experience against the corporate strategy,” says Griesedieck. “They are pushing for change when they don’t align.”

The irony—and challenge—is that so many directors have left that boards may have trouble replacing them. Instead of filling one open seat, some boards face multiple vacancies; in a few extreme cases, the entire board has stepped down. Board dynamics and culture can be delicate, says Goodman, and “sometimes, replacing multiple directors at once can create a division between legacy members and newbies.” The upside, however, is that in an environment of accelerated change, bringing in several new directors simultaneously can instantly upgrade the skills, expertise, and relevance of the entire board. “A good board-succession plan must include leavers as well as joiners, and the challenge for boards is balancing them out,” says Goodman. 

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s Board and CEO Services capabilities. 

Read more This Week in Leadership articles