Women in the Boardroom CEO & Founder Sheila Ronning was recently featured in the Huffington Post article by Christa Dowling titled ‘The Art of Asking’ in which Sheila made the following remark on boardroom skill-sets:
“A well-rounded board will have a matrix of skill-sets needed to best serve its clients whether that is for the shareholders of a public company or a private one. When a board needs to add an additional or new member they decide which skill-sets are missing. In most cases the board will reach out to those within their own network. Research shows that less than 15 percent of all board seats are filled by a search firm. When a search firm is retained, the first question is often asked ‘who do you know?’ Over the past three to five years there has been a shift in what skills are needed for boards. The boardrooms were filled with financial experts but in today’s world those are not the only sought-for skills; there is a new wave of skills that boards are seeking, they are in marketing, online, social, risk oversight, sales, operations and human resources. The media tends to focus on Fortune 500 boards but it is vital to know what type of corporate board one is best suited for, maybe it is a smaller public company, a privately held company or a for-profit advisory one. On each of the boards the job of a director varies. For a public company it is governance, for a private company the focus tends to be on strategy.”
To read the complete article, click here.
Thanks to Huffington Post for giving us permission to share this article. The opinions and experiences expressed by the author or subjects do not necessarily reflect those of Women in the Boardroom.
