Seniority can make an executive credible. It does not automatically make them board-ready. This guide explains what boards actually evaluate, how to assess your governance readiness, how to position your experience for board service, and what to do before pursuing or accepting a directorship.
Two new pay disclosure regimes have arrived in the past twelve weeks, alongside a UK regime nine years old, and not one of the three measures the gap inside the executive committee. That is precisely where an 8% gap survives every control the research can apply.
Board fees, interim day rates and the freedom are the parts of a portfolio career that get written about. The parts that decide whether it works are utilisation, the shortage of seats, and a personal liability that an executive contract never carried.
South Africa’s qualifications statute carries five years’ imprisonment and has produced no publicly reported prosecution. The consequences that end executive careers sit elsewhere: a civil claim for the whole of what you were paid, a five-year bar from directorship that needs no conviction, and a board verification duty that took effect this year.
