PARMI NATESAN: Board members should not take on too many directorships
Serving on a board takes up much more time than it used to, and governance suffers if members have too many other commitments
A recent editorial in Business Day raised a perennial governance hot potato: on just how many boards should a single individual be able to serve? The tenor of the article was that the chair of Capitec should focus on that role, and risked being distracted by chairing two other boards as well.
It’s an important issue. While a seat on the board was once a gentleman’s job, the crown of a successful business career, the development of new ideas on governance and its importance mean that business acumen and experience are no longer anything like enough. Specific technical skills in governance are now mandatory, as are the personal or social skills that support critical thinking and collaborative exchanges. ..
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