Board Advisory

The right mix of talent, skills and perspectives in the boardroom can mean the difference between value creation and value destruction. At Egon Zehnder, we have partnered with boards for over 50 years as they adapt to meet the challenges of the complex stakeholders they serve.
 

Who We Are

• We are a dedicated senior team with experience across industries. We are not leveraged, and we don’t bait and switch—the consultants you meet at the start will lead the entire engagement.

• We have one global P&L. As a result, we are incentivized to collaborate and harness all of our Firm’s resources to ensure our clients’ success. We tap into our firm-wide network to offer creative solutions.

• We have an integrated approach to our services. Our board team members are active in C-suite executive search too and have direct knowledge of active executives who are qualified and available for board roles.

• We are advisors and thought partners. We invest significant time upfront with the board to understand the strategic priorities and culture. We take a thoughtful and creative approach to solutions for search and board development.

• We focus on relationships. We purposefully take on fewer engagements than our competitors to focus more deeply on our clients’ needs and are known for staying close to our clients and being highly responsive at every stage of our engagements.

• We are committed to diversity and inclusion. In 2019, two-thirds of our board director placements were from underrepresented communities, and we are constantly working to identify and develop the next generation of board-ready leaders.
   

What We Do

We partner with companies and organizations of diverse scale, sector, and life stage to create successful outcomes for their stakeholders—from global Fortune 50 companies to regional family-owned businesses to high-growth disruptors preparing for IPO. For all of our clients, we leverage our unique global reach and equal partnership compensation model to ensure that everything we do has a singular focus: creating more effective boards.

• Board Director Hiring: We can help you discover your next board member, design onboarding plans, and help the full board adopt more inclusive practices. We have specialized expertise with diversity and inclusion in the boardroom, and we stay a step ahead of trends by regularly tracking boardroom diversity around the globe with our Global Board Diversity Tracker. Learn more.

• Director Onboarding and Integration: A thoughtful approach to onboarding and integrating a newly-appointed Director can help accelerate the impact they have on the Board. This is particularly important given increased focus on skillsets such as digital, innovation and new economy businesses which often result in the appointment of first-time Directors. Similarly, as Boards diversify their composition through the appointment of leaders from underrepresented communities, a thoughtful process focused on how the Board and new Director can understand, adapt to, and leverage each other’s diverse backgrounds can help ensure not only representation, but inclusion.

• Board Effectiveness: Directorship is a job with part-time hours and full-time responsibilities. When boards do not operate effectively, valuable time is wasted and opportunities are lost. Board effectiveness reviews can help gauge where your board is now and what it needs to become the board of tomorrow. Our board consultants can help you identify skills or gaps in expertise and help board leaders have difficult conversations with fellow board members in the spirit of board improvement. Learn more.

• Board and CEO Succession Planning: Without strong succession planning, you leave your company’s future to chance. We can evaluate and help develop internal CEO candidates as well as find the right external candidates. We also have deep experience in director succession planning and can help you develop a long-term talent pipeline that will bring the skills and expertise you need into your boardroom. Learn more.
   

How We Will Work Together

Our intention to build trusted relationships with our clients extends to all phases of our work together: we start every engagement with a blank sheet of paper and a focus on understanding our clients’ strategic priorities. We then develop thoughtful approaches to meeting the need, whether it be creative solutions for hard-to-solve director recruitment, or shaping a board’s processes and behaviors to be more fit to purpose. We don’t show the same list of ‘usual suspects’ that other firms do. We also help develop strong onboarding and conscious inclusion training for existing board members, which sets up new board members—especially those who bring diverse points of view—as active contributors to the board from day one.