Who wants to be a non-exec? Hands up for a seat on a Bank’s Board?
I refer to the Evening Standard article in the business section (14/10/14) by Nick Goodway.
The situation portrayed in the article of a potential deputy chairman of a bank in the UK, deciding against taking up the role, is no rarity. Furthermore, this is not just a situation unique to banks.
Most of the top end recruiters out there will confirm that it is not getting the non-executive business from the client that is the problem – it is rather, getting the right candidate that is difficult.
Particularly in financial services there is a paucity of quality people that want to take up NED roles. In the Insurance and Asset Management sectors for instance, many potential NEDs are moving out of their sectors and doing something completely different on retirement – not staying in their industries to complete NED roles.
Correspondingly of course, many headhunting remits are for specialists in that sector, a banker for a bank, an insurer for an insurance business.
This is not just about the threat of the offence of “reckless misconduct”, it is also the huge increase in regulation and corporate governance that is switching people off.
We need to expand the NED gene pool and not reduce it!
