External board seats are typically filled with established CEOs and retired executives who have weathered the storms of business growth and can bring wisdom to a growing company or one that is in a transformative state. Of course, there is no negating the value of this executive but as the demand for diversity on boards grows, so does the need to widen the pool of candidates and to think more expansively about how to open board seats to executives who are currently operating in organizations and are a level down from the CEO.
A friend recently forwarded me this CNBC article where Ursula Burns, former CEO and Chairwoman of Xerox, addresses the challenge of finding Black executives to fill board seats noting that there are only four Black CEOs in the Fortune 500. Beyond opening your candidate pool to add race and gender diversity to your board, broadening your search to include current executive leaders who are not CEOs can bring tremendous value with their in-depth understanding of the market and real-time knowledge and network related to the company’s business needs.
Many of the start-up CEOs we work with at Shine Talent come from product, engineering or operations backgrounds, and as their companies scale, they struggle to understand the complexities involved with customer acquisition, marketplace expansion, and high-margin revenue growth. They lean heavily on the expertise of their hired sales and marketing executives but often look for more support in designing these divisions and determining talent, compensation, and budgets needed for expansion. Dedicating a board seat to a proven revenue and marketplace executive leader, who has walked the path your company aspires to go, can be an invaluable asset for growth and can play a significant role in helping to avoid the very costly mistakes typically made in these divisions.
Looking beyond the established CEO to revenue and marketing executive leaders who have propelled a company’s success can be a very powerful decision that will deliver a more diverse candidate pool as well as bring invaluable operational expertise.
