Survey Highlights Governance Trends, Inner Workings of Boardrooms

The 11th edition of the Board Practices Report, a report by Deloitte LLP’s Center for Board Effectiveness and the Society for Corporate Governance, highlights current and emerging governance trends, including insightful data on the inner workings of corporate boardrooms. In addition to current topics such as cybersecurity, recruitment, and shareholder engagement, the survey focuses on board and board committee practices and other oversight motifs, shedding light on practices such as the frequency of meetings, makeup of board committees, the types of company executives who attend meetings, and board policies on director education. A sampling of the questions and responses are below:

• The most common board size is 9-10 members.
• In-person meeting frequency is 4-5 times a year.
• Telephonic meeting frequency is up to 2 times a year.
• Meeting duration for in-person meetings is >5 hours and for telephonic meetings it is 1 hour.
• According to survey participants, the most common topics discussed at meetings were: Strategy (41%); Regulatory matters (23%); Capital allocation (20%); Mergers and acquisitions (17%).
• In the next one or two years, the areas of professional experience among the top recruitment priorities for survey participants were: industry specific experience (41%); digital or technology strategy (32%); and business leadership (32%).
• Boards seeking to increase diversity on their boards tended to use referrals from other board members (77%); search firms (73%); professional service providers, including law firms and accounting firms (10%); and referrals from organizations focused on board diversity (8%).