Why more boards will seek directors with health care experience

For the past seven years the Heidrick & Struggles Board Monitor has tracked and analyzed trends in nonexecutive director appointments to Fortune 500 boards, capturing the key attributes of new appointees — their demographics, industry backgrounds, and functional roles, among other factors. For the past two years we have used a novel way of tracking the flow of experience onto boards, comprehensively looking at all of the substantial career experiences of the new appointees, which we believe provides a more telling picture of the actual expertise that Fortune 500 boards deem most desirable. In 2015, about six percent of new directors had substantial experience in health care (including life sciences, medical devices, and health care services providers like large hospital systems). While that’s a relatively small percentage of the total, these skills were well distributed across industries of all kinds.

 

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