The Right Age to be a Director

An interesting new report from Boardex looks at the impact of AGE on the likelihood of securing board or executive directorships in the UK and US.

Some notable averages emerge from the analysis and there are useful clues about how boards appoint with respect to age which prospective candidates will want to know.

For example, CEOs are appointed at 48 on average in the UK, but are 3 years older in the US. ED appointments are on average 5 years older in the US. NEDs are similarly appointed at 56/57 on average, with Chairs at 59 in both the UK and US.

The ‘odds’ of securing director roles diminishes markedly with age however and in the UK this is apparent for CEOs beyond 50-55 and for NEDs around 10 years later.

On female appointments, the report says that ‘in all cases the likelihood of women achieving a position never exceeds that of a man at any age or for any position’. This rather contradicts current perceptions of a perceived preference to appoint female directors but is surely explained by the simple majority of male appointees, since only 23% of all directors are female in the UK and just 21% in the US.