Boardrooms have long been the domain of executives in their 50s, 60s — and even 70s, now that more boards are loosening mandatory retirement limits. But many boards are also electing directors in their early 30s — very often younger entrepreneurs who are the leading lights of digital transformation. Competition for these younger directors is fierce because of the experience and perspective they bring regarding the forces shaping the economy. But recruiting them also brings risks because of differences in generational perspectives and expectations. 

Alex Schmelkin joined the board of United Stationers Inc. in 2012 at the age of 36. United Stationers, whose shares are traded on Nasdaq, is a leading wholesale supplier of business products with 2014 net sales of $5.3 billion. Schmelkin is CEO of Alexander Interactive (Ai), a New York-based firm that he founded in 2002 and grew from a small web agency to a full-scale web design and engineering company.

Many seasoned directors have noticed the fairly recent minitrend, as chronicled in the business press, of much younger individuals being elected to big company boards (where the average age is 63). We are not talking here about successful corporate executives in their 40s, but rather entrepreneurs in their 20s or early 30s, often with little real business experience much less any board experience or even any meaningful tenure with a company having revenue or, dare we say, profits. One might think, why . . . and then, OK, how can we prepare them for this responsibility?

The annual performance review. Many boards don’t take full advantage of them as a leadership-development mechanism for the CEO. But CEOs are no different from other employees: they need honest, direct and timely feedback. In the CEO’s case, getting unfiltered feedback from most people can be especially tricky, so a rigorous review by the board matters all the more.

Short of a crisis, the issues on the audit committee’s radar don’t change dramatically from year to year (and they probably shouldn’t); but sometimes small shifts tell a big story.

Every editor likes to bring in fresh voices to the pages of their publication. But every editor also has their “go to” authors — those who are known for their expertise in the subject matter and have written dependably for the editor before. I typically have both in every edition of Directors & Boards, and this issue especially so.

This past winter my partner Charles E. Fiero passed away. Chuck was my mentor for over three decades, first as a summer intern at Chase Bank, then as a management consultant at the Hay Group, and finally as a partner at MLR Holdings, publisher of Directors & Boards magazine. After a 25-year career at Chase where he rose to executive vice president reporting directly to Chairman David Rockefeller, Chuck joined my father at Hay and later at MLR, becoming his most trusted, loyal, and wise partner.

It seems as if every day one or two (or more) advisories come across my screen on board oversight of cyber risks. Just as I sit down to pen this note I download the latest newsletter of a good colleague and past author, IR expert Carl Hagberg, who headlines his lead story, “Cybersecurity Soars to the Top of Board Agendas” [The Shareholder Service Optimizer, Third Quarter 2014]. Webinars, roundtable dis- cussions, and conferences abound on this topic.