AltoPartners Website News

Access to Supervisory Board Positions, Board Practices, and Compensation : Insights from a Survey of Austrian and German Supervisory Board Members

2026-06-03T09:28:03Z

This article was first published in German. The original article can be viewed in the PDF. Leading insights contributed by Dr Julia Zdrahal-Urbanek, Founder and Managing Partner AltoPartners Executive Search in Austria

Executive Summary

Access to Supervisory Board Positions, Board Practices, and Compensation: Insights from a Survey of Austrian and German Supervisory Board Members

The supervisory board is in transition. While traditional responsibilities such as oversight, governance and financial control remain central, boards are increasingly expected to contribute strategic guidance, support corporate resilience and navigate a more demanding regulatory and geopolitical environment. Against this backdrop, researchers from WU Vienna, together with AltoPartners Executive Search and Women Corporate Directors Austria, conducted a survey of 155 supervisory board members in Austria and Germany. The resulting analysis, authored by Alexander Hofer (WU Vienna), Ewald Aschauer (WU Vienna) and Julia Zdrahal-Urbanek (Alto Executive Search), examines how supervisory board members gain access to board positions, which competencies are most valued, what topics dominate board agendas, and how board compensation is perceived.

Access to a first supervisory board mandate continues to be driven primarily by professional networks and personal recommendations. Although executive search firms are playing a growing role in identifying candidates with specific expertise, formal and transparent appointment processes have yet to become the norm. Trust remains the single most important prerequisite for board appointments, complemented by industry experience, financial expertise and strategic capabilities. Emerging competencies such as digitalisation, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and ESG are increasingly valued, but they continue to rank behind traditional business credentials.

The survey also highlights a clear hierarchy of board priorities. Strategic development, CEO and executive succession, governance and corporate resilience dominate board agendas, while sustainability and digital transformation, despite gaining visibility, are not yet perceived as being on an equal footing with these core responsibilities. Respondents identify information asymmetry between management and the supervisory board as a key challenge, alongside interpersonal dynamics and the effectiveness of informal communication channels.

Compensation presents a more nuanced picture. Most respondents consider their remuneration broadly appropriate, yet many point to a growing mismatch between rising expectations and largely unchanged compensation structures. Fixed fees remain the dominant model, while performance-related elements are rare. Notably, a majority of respondents do not regard supervisory board remuneration in their home market as internationally competitive, raising concerns about the ability of companies with global ambitions to attract and retain highly qualified board members.

Taken together, the findings portray supervisory boards as institutions moving from a predominantly supervisory role towards a more professional and strategically engaged governance model. Greater transparency in board appointments, broader competency profiles and continued professionalisation are likely to define the next stage of this evolution.

The Director's Dilemma - June 2026 Edition

2026-06-02T11:56:47Z

Produced by Julie Garland-McLellan, one of Australia’s most internationally acclaimed company directors and board advisors. She is renowned for her practical experience as well as deep governance expertise and qualifications. She is a consultant at AltoPartners Australia and is based in Sydney, Australia and travels worldwide to bring boards and directors the practical development and insights that they need.

Contribution by Jean-Philippe Saint-Geours, a Senior Advisor at Leaders Trust International France, a Member of the Executive Committee and a former Global Chairman of AltoPartners. His executive practice encompasses general management and Board directorships. His search experience sectors include industry, distribution, media, public services, insurance and trade organizations. He conducts Boards of Directors assessment services and a yearly survey on Corporate Governance trends in France. Jean-Philippe is closely involved in the Institute of French Directors (IFA) taskforces and events.

This edition of the newsletter was first published on The Director’s Dilemma website and the full newsletter is available for viewing here. To subscribe to future editions of the newsletter, click here

The Director’s Dilemma - June 2026

This month our real-life board dilemma concerns a director who has joined a board and immediately helped make a decision that he is now worried about.

Jacinta is the newly minted chair of a not-for-profit company board. The organisation has had a tumultuous few years and, at the recent EGM, the whole board apart from one director were replaced with new elected directors. The six new directors attended their first meeting four weeks after the EGM and were asked to sign the audited financial statements. As they had not been present when the activities were undertaken, or when the draft financial statements were recommended to the auditor, the directors resolved to authorise the ‘ongoing director’ to sign the accounts. The auditor had given the accounts a clean opinion and the ongoing director and the executive team members (EO, CFO, and Co Sec) confirmed that they believed, to the best of their knowledge, that the accounts were correct.

The one ongoing director resigned at the end of the meeting and the accounts were lodged with the relevant regulators the following day. These events were documented in the minutes which were approved at the next board meeting. Then some issues emerged with a couple of major grants that had not been reflected in the accounts, even as contingencies, although they were identifiable in costs incurred and communications from the granting body stating that the costs would not be reimbursed. These costs, and the possible claw back of other grant money already spent, place the company’s solvency at risk. The Co Sec has said that, because the directors didn’t abstain or disagree with signing and lodging the accounts, the directors could be held liable.

Jacinta is worried that her colleagues now want to resign, the company is becoming insolvent, and she is at risk. She wants to lead the company to survive.

What should she do?

Jean-Philippe’s Answer

Jacinta is facing a serious governance failure, not a financial reporting problem. The accounts appear to have been validated without sufficient cross-checking, despite identifiable grant-related costs, unreimbursable expenses, and communications from granting bodies indicating emerging liabilities. In the French not-for-profit context, where associations are not always required to maintain an audit committee, this type of governance gap can remain undetected until solvency is threatened.

The immediate concern is to stabilise the organisation and protect the board from further exposure. The resignation of the sole continuing director immediately after the accounts were approved may leave the newly appointed directors vulnerable under French governance rules because they did not formally abstain from, or oppose, the approval and lodging of the accounts.

Jacinta should resist the temptation to begin immediate legal action against the executive committee, auditor, or former director. At this stage, the priority is cooperation, disclosure, and fact-finding.

The board should establish a small ad hoc “salvation committee” of three to four directors, including a financial expert and someone close to the organisation’s mission. Its role should be to conduct professional technical hearings with the CEO, CFO, company secretary, auditor, and resigned director to establish the full extent of liabilities, assess whether further issues may emerge, and determine what can still be negotiated with banks or granting authorities.
A tentative road map is designed by the ad hoc Committee that includes bank negotiations and project prioritisation decisions. The aim is to rebuild trust, keep directors from resigning, and unite the board and executive team around a realistic survival roadmap.
The roadmap is presented to the board for approval
The plan goes to the EGM for final approval
The approved plan is implemented

The board should initially “play it cool” to secure cooperation and obtain a complete picture of events. Only once the facts are fully understood should the organisation determine whether this was negligence, superficial oversight, or deliberate concealment warranting legal action.

Julie’s Answer

Oh dear. This is what can happen when the board treats signing off on something as a formality, rather than a commitment to the truth.

First Jacinta needs to rally her board. They – jointly – signed off on these accounts. It doesn’t matter whose signature is on the paper; the whole board authorised the signatory to sign on their behalf. Piecemeal resignations will leave a patchwork of slightly differing exposures and open the possibility for the board to fracture. As Ben Fanklin said, “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” Having a united board makes it much more difficult for legal action to single out any current or former member.

Next, Jacinta needs to have a candid conversation with the board and senior executives to explain their duty to escalate concerns (or become liable) and to find out what was known, when, and by whom. This will ensure that escalation duties are understood and the board is fully informed and kept that way into the future.

The CEO and the responsible manager should then prepare a clear report outlining the grant obligations, where these have not been met, and the possible remedies together with costs, timeframes, and implications for solvency.

All of this should be done as quickly as possible. Days, not weeks.

At this point she has the information to give to her legal team and can work with them on a strategy for engaging with the client to propose a solution that does not include a claw back of the entire grant amount. Hopefully, the client will be more interested in getting the services provided and the grant back on track (although without paying for items that are not included) than in making an example of Jacinta’s company to deter others from ‘stretching’ grant expenses. If not, or if a letter of claim is received, she should immediately seek and appoint an administrator.

Two decades of transformation: From headhunting to strategic leadership advisory (2006–2026)

2026-05-27T10:04:48Z

Two decades ago, executive search was largely transactional. Today, leadership advisory sits at the centre of business transformation. In this retrospective, as AltoPartners celebrates our 20th anniversary, we explore how leadership, talent, workplace culture, technology, diversity, and executive search have evolved from 2006 to 2026 — shaped by AI, global disruption, hybrid work, demographic shifts, and changing expectations of modern leaders. Discover how the industry moved from traditional headhunting to strategic leadership advisory, and what the next twenty years may hold for organisations navigating uncertainty, agility, and transformation.

On January 1, 2006 George W. Bush Jnr. was the President of the United States, and Tony Blair was UK Prime Minister. The world economy was expanding, but there were some signs of trouble: inflationary concerns, tighter conditions in financial markets, and jumps in oil prices. The Great Recession was a year and more in the future.

All in all, the developed world was more-or-less stable – it was a good time to launch a new executive search partnership. AltoPartners was founded in 2006 – and is still going strong in spite of (or because of) all the events of the last 20 years: rise of new technologies and innovations, that Great Recession, the Arab Spring Uprisings, Brexit, the COVID epidemic and geopolitical instability from multiple wars being just some of them.

We took a look at those two decades, and this is what we found: what’s changed, what’s stayed the same and what the future challenges might be.

Technology: In 2006, the iPhone had not yet been launched (that was to happen in January 2007) and Blackberry phones were starting their march to widespread use. The internet was about 15 years old (the first website having been launched in 1991). Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were in their infancy. LinkedIn was officially launched in 2003 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2016, going on to announce in 2021 that it had surpassed $10 billion in annual revenue for the first time. In 2026, the professional networking platform claims 1.3 billion registered users. November 2022 marks another hugely significant digital change: the advent of generative and agentic AI heralded by the launch of ChatGPT.

Music: In 2006, consumers relied on radio, MTV, and CDs – but the times were changing. CD shipments in the United States had already started declining, and the iTunes store had sold over 1 billion songs, proving that the “unbundling” of the album and the rise of the iPod were well under way. While MTV still had cultural influence, 2006 marked the moment music videos moved from scheduled TV to on-demand internet viewing. Google acquired YouTube in October 2006, just a day after the platform signed a distribution deal to protect the rights of a music firm’s artists. By this time, the platform was already serving 100 million video views per day. Music streaming was on the way in: Spotify was founded in 2006 – and today boasts 100 million tracks, 751 million monthly active users and €17.1 billion in revenue in 2025.

Women in the workplace: According to a Grant Thornton report, in 2004, women held 19.4% of senior management roles globally in mid-market businesses across all sectors. In 2025, more than one in three senior management roles (34.0%) were held by women. A LeanIn/McKinsey study also shows an upward curve for women in the C-suite, but notes that in 2024, women of colour held just 7% of C-suite roles. When it comes to women’s representation on boards, Pew Research Centre says that there was 14.6% female representation on Fortune 500 boards in 2006, which had risen to 30.4% in 2022. All this means that over the two decades, there’s been an increase in the number of women in top roles in the global economy - but AltoPartners’ latest research has some caveats about that, showing that the lower levels of women’s representation highlight persistent structural barriers in the leadership pipeline.

Multi-generational workplaces: Over the 20 years that AltoPartners has been in existence, there’s been a marked shift in global demographics. The number of people aged 65 and over is projected to reach one in six globally by 2050, we found in a 2022 report. This demographic shift, driven by rising life expectancy and falling birth rates, presents both challenges and opportunities for businesses worldwide: there are not enough young people, resulting in a critical labour and skill shortage; people are living longer than they can afford to; and ageism is hard baked into many organisational cultures. To meet these challenges, AltoPartners advocates for leadership to consciously embrace multi-generational workplaces.

Office hours: It’s safe to say that in 2006, leaders and their teams would have expected to get up in the morning and travel to the office to do a day’s work. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic changed that. When the impact of the pandemic waned, working from home or hybrid work were on the table in ways they had not been previously. In many countries, there’s been a shift back to working in the office, but hybrid work remained a dominant model globally in 2025. According to the Cisco Global Hybrid Work Study 2025, the percentage of employees in hybrid arrangements declined from 62% in 2022 to 45% in 2025, reflecting a shift toward more in-office time. Nearly 72% of organisations had in-office mandates, and 46% of employees reported their current policy required more in-office time than previous ones. Despite this trend, 54% said their latest policies offered greater flexibility than before the pandemic.

New roles: In 2006, an occupational survey by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics listed these as frequent or highly visible job roles: cashier, office clerk, general, customer service representative, software engineer, accountant, HR specialist, stockbroker. These reflect a labour market still anchored in retail, basic office work and traditional professional services. In 2026, a LinkedIn jobs survey includes these roles: AI engineer / machine learning engineer, remote project manager / agile coach, renewable energy technician (e.g., wind, solar) and AI prompt / AI coaching specialist (an emerging niche).

At C-suite level, these titles were among the ones to covet in 2006: Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. In 2026, the C-suite might contain a Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Wellbeing Officer and Chief AI Officer. In a sign of the times, it’s reported that Google has recently announced the appointment of a Director of AGI Economics.

Leadership: In the early 2000s, businesses were operating in a relatively stable world, where incremental change was only just starting to take hold. Autocratic leadership was often the norm; managers made all the decisions, with little input from employees. The focus was on hard skills and getting tasks done. It was also relatively easy to identify and develop future leaders. In 2026, not so much. From tariff wars to climate change, from generative AI to diversity and equity challenges, from legal and business risks to Covid fallout, we’re in a polycrisis. In that world, the need for strong leaders has not changed. But leaders now need to provide stability while enabling organisational agility, which means a strong commitment to adaptive and agile leadership. This is important for business survival but also for private equity investors, who now look for leaders who can use artificial intelligence to move a company from “experimental pilot” to “full-scale implementation” at speed.

Executive search: In a history of executive search, the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants writes that the early 2000s saw a surging demand from emerging markets and a “War for Talent,” which led to a nearly 120% increase in global demand for executive search services from 2004 to 2008. That trend continued over the next decades, along with increasing globalisation. “The profession experienced steady growth, again, from 2012 to 2019, reaching $16 billion. 2020 saw a… dip due to the global pandemic, but the profession rebounded in 2021 with $19.9 billion in revenue. 2022 saw $21.1 billion in revenue.” In 2006, executive search was largely transactional; in 2026, the keyword is transformation. In that landscape, trusted strategic advisors use AI, market intelligence and their own expertise to help their clients navigate complex challenges. Employer brand, reputation, purpose and culture are now key decision-making factors for attracting talent. At AltoPartners, the tools may have changed, but the founding principles of ethics, integrity, and local culture remain the same.

Conclusion: Looking toward 2046

We live in a time described by business school professor and author Toby Stuart as “an era (of) extreme opacity about the future”, where business leaders can no longer confidently plan for the future. He believes that success “belongs to those who master optionality;… remain agile in their identities, and (who) build adaptable organisational systems”. The situation is no different for the executive search and leadership consulting industry: we’re along for the ride!

Written by Renee Moodie

20 Years of AltoPartners: A culture of global collaboration and curiosity

2026-05-12T10:55:31Z

Marking 20 years since its founding in 2006, AltoPartners reflects on its evolution into a global executive search partnership built on trust, local insight, and cross-border collaboration. In this perspective, Jean-Philippe Saint-Geours reflects on AltoPartners’ evolution during the global financial crisis, sharing how the partnership strengthened its international executive search capabilities, expanded into key global markets, and built a collaborative model based on trust, local expertise and cross-border leadership advisory.

I took the baton of Global Chairman from Albert Froom in June 2009, and when I became Global Chairman, the situation was uncertain.

The global financial crisis was at its peak following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Like many organisations, we had to ask ourselves a difficult question: should we continue as we were – or rethink everything?

We chose to continue, but in a different way. We became leaner, more disciplined, and more focused on what really mattered.

It was a demanding period, but also one of the most rewarding of my career, because we succeeded in the turnaround.

In that period, I had two priorities.

The first was to strengthen the partnership from within by developing and consolidating our assets: people, diversity, efficient governance, our information system, geographic coverage, amongst others.

We worked to clarify how we operated by putting in place a proper charter, defining what makes a strong partner, and establishing clear principles for working together across borders. We also created a more structured way of managing the organisation, with shared responsibilities rather than central control. This was possible thanks to a very active and dedicated Global Operating Committee. This groundwork laid the foundation for us to then hire our first employee in 2014, Julia Scheffer, who succeeded tremendously well in modernising our image and developing our marketing tools internally and externally.

We also began to invest more seriously in our infrastructure, driven by Jakub Cerny and supported by Jana Martinova in Prague.

We improved our technology platforms to better share information across countries, and we worked on building a stronger and more consistent brand. I still remember the long discussions about our visual identity – even debating between images of “birds” and “mountains” before finally agreeing on the direction of mountains to demonstrate “altitude” and at the time, our logo was blue and grey. Importantly, we made a conscious choice about what AltoPartners should be.

Not a “network”, but a true partnership of equals – an alliance. Each partner with one voice. No hierarchy, no dominant firm. At the time, I often thought of it as something closer to NATO than to a traditional corporate structure.

This was essential when we were actively “selling” our alliance to attract potential new member firms.

The second priority was to expand our global presence.

While we had some international bricks in place, we knew that if we truly wanted to be credible internationally, we needed to be present in the right markets.

Securing the United States was essential. It was a long and sometimes difficult journey, but bringing Diversified Search into the partnership was a decisive step forward. I am proud that as they were there during our time of growth, we have been there with them through their impressive evolution and dominance in the US market.

At the same time, we expanded into emerging markets such as South Africa, Türkiye and parts of Asia Pacific. I remember travelling several times to Johannesburg or Istanbul to find the right partner while discovering the specialties of governance in these marketplaces. Also a very intense trip to Shanghai with Ian and Sonal, where we had to rethink and complete our China partnership in three days. These were not simple decisions, but they shaped the future of AltoPartners.

Despite the crisis, this period became one of the most active for cross-border work. It was at a time of peak globalisation, particularly in the industrial sectors. Our alliance acted as a kind of shock absorber – when one market slowed, another was growing. There was particularly strong collaboration between Eastern and Western Europe in this business model development.

But beyond all of this, what made the difference was the people.

This was never a one-man role. It was a collective effort.

I would especially like to thank Sonal Agrawal, Jana Martinova, Corinne Klajda and other members of our Global Operating Committee, whose precision, energy and commitment were essential during those years. What we achieved was the result of true teamwork.

As I look at AltoPartners today, my belief is that the same principles still apply.

We must continue to learn from each other and collaborate more actively across countries and practices. We must stay curious about what others are doing and how our profession is evolving. Technology will continue to challenge us, as it already did with the rise of the internet and LinkedIn. And now with AI, the same questions apply. How do we continue to add value to our clients? What is our differentiation?

But I do not believe that technology will replace what we do best.

It will replace simple, transactional work. It will not replace judgement, relationships, or the understanding of people and cultures. That remains our responsibility.

I am proud to have been part of this journey.

20 Years of AltoPartners: Cultivating a Global Community of Trust

2026-05-05T08:11:47Z

Marking 20 years since its founding in 2006, AltoPartners reflects on its evolution into a global executive search partnership built on trust, local insight, and cross-border collaboration. In this perspective, Founding Partner Jana Martinová shares how deep relationships, shared values, and entrepreneurial partners have shaped AltoPartners’ ability to deliver impactful leadership solutions in an increasingly complex, global talent landscape.

Back in 2006, I was a Search consultant and had just completed a management buyout of the firm I still own today: I had suddenly become entrepreneur in Prague and had to now define how my partners and I across CEE could continue working together, and increasingly internationally.

At this time, our region just stopped being a zone of interest for direct foreign investment, which helped us and many competitors (including the integrated global firms) create a solid base of large international corporate clients. Businesses interested selling their products to new CEE markets where already present, and many new businesses moved their manufacturing capacities more due to state incentives and subsidiaries, and less with regard to the decreasing delta in cost of labour vs. productivity.

On the other hand, some local CEE business champions were reaching out to new, international markets.

It was within this context that our main objective in founding AltoPartners was to be recognized by our clients as having the ability to work in international business while understanding their culture and priorities. And we found partners in “old Europe” and Asia that were fully aligned with our objectives. I remember well, how a visit to a Board member of the largest Czech-owned insurance company, that was searching for non-executive Board members for their upcoming IPO, with Albert Froom (Netherlands), Ian Lloyd (UK) and I, resulted in multiple searches, including the appointment of a CEO of that same company.

It was a very successful and promising start of the alliance, which started from 16 founding member firms, and has grown today to 36 member firms with 60 offices in 37 countries.

Have we always kept our commitments towards AltoPartners over the last 20 years?

Yes and no. In terms of members and their spread we are much larger today, and due to a professional branding effort (thanks to Julia and her team), we seem to be visible even in a world overwhelmed by communication of very different quality.

With Jakub and his team based in Prague, we were able to propose a secure and solid information platform creating awareness and the sense of community, enabling us to exchange business information and share news and knowledge.

Launched in 2008, it gave all members (+500 users) access to the directory, a BD database with 28 000 business cases of which 1000 are cross-border assignments. The platform connects data from the AltoPartners website, AESC external and internal sources and internal knowledge from all 60 AltoPartners offices.

In terms of cross-border business, one of the declared reasons for being of the AltoPartners alliance, the result has been behind the expectations for many of us.

The reasons for this are certainly to be sought after in all our partner offices, our diverse local positioning, and our focus on local clients, who might not always have cross-border interests and needs.

However, while some seeds are lost, some germinate and amongst many meetings and initiatives that sadly didn’t materialise in the way we hoped, some invaluable good has grown: a deep trust amongst some partners based on personal relationships and friendship. The readiness to go the extra mile for your AltoPartner, who entrusted you with their client relationship.

The world of Executive Search has changed a lot with the rise of social networks and the use of English as a first or second business language: we all experience headhunters calling from abroad and selling candidates skimmed from online sources. Internal Talent acquisition operates the same way. Sometimes our commitment not to compete in another AltoPartners market may seem outdated, especially if our client does not mind the location of the position to be filled.

And yet, as we position ourselves against this kind of competition with our deep knowledge of specific markets and talent pools, able to search across time and space, we can succeed in promoting our AltoPartners as consultants reaching out to beyond candidates presenting themselves on social media, and able to evaluate them in the context of their countries’ business environments.

Knowing and trusting each other has become a real “hard currency” or “gold standard” we can rely on in case opportunities present themselves at once: I had the chance to work partners in Canada, Italy, Germany and India for one and the same client.

As my colleagues have done the “extra mile” for me, I am regarded as a consultant with a strong international network today and credible in discussions for other international and domestic mandates.

These are the moments I can see a return on a long investment of time and efforts into AltoPartners!

But there are other benefits coming from those same trustful relationships to fellow AltoPartners: I could call on partners changing ownership or exiting the business on their advice and experience regarding business models and local set-ups.

I could share tools, new approaches and failed attempts with peers who have been there before me.

To me, this means we have succeeded in creating a community I like to be a part of, helping me to position myself and to reach out for skills and cooperation.

This is quite a lot in these days, is it not? Happy Birthday to you AltoPartners! I wish you a lot of open and positive minded partners ready to invest their time and effort into making you even stronger!

And none of us should forget the time and effort put into our AltoPartners by both the professional team and the volunteers at OCO level keeping the alliance alive with a reasonable budget!

The Director's Dilemma - May 2026 Edition

2026-05-04T09:10:55Z

Contribution by Mpho Nkeli, who has executive experience spanning over 15 years. She trained as an environmental scientist; moved to marketing, communications, social investment and enterprise development. Mpho later focused on Human Resources and transformation. She was Group HR Director of Alexander Forbes before joining Vodacom as Chief HR Officer. Mpho served on several boards and currently at Impala Platinum and Sasol. She was Executive Director on various boards of Alexander Forbes and Vodacom South Africa. She was Chairman of the Commission of Employment Equity. She received the Laureate Award from the University of Pretoria in 2009. Mpho has completed numerous NEDs, CEOs, HR Directors, C-Suite and General Managers assignments across multiple sectors. Mpho leads the SPi Board Practice and her qualifications include a BSc, MAP and an MBA.

This edition of the newsletter was first published on The Director’s Dilemma website and the full newsletter is available for viewing here To subscribe to future editions of the newsletter, click here

The Director’s Dilemma - May 2026

This month our real-life board dilemma concerns a director asked to join a board that has a constitution which contains a few clauses that don’t seem to fit with what he was taught in his director education courses.

Isiah works for a multinational company that has asked him to take board seats on international joint venture subsidiaries. The company paid for him to do a company director training course before deciding whether to accept and, although mindful of the onerous duties, he completed the course and indicated that he would like to give it a try.

Now the company has asked him to join a South African JV subsidiary and has provided a large package of reading materials to help him get up to speed. Isiah started with the company constitution and was surprised to find a clause that allowed the board to remove a director if the remaining directors unanimously voted for removal. In his course, Isiah was very firmly taught that only shareholders could remove directors and that attempts by a board to remove one of the directors could indicate a board that didn’t tolerate dissent or challenge.

Isiah isn’t sure what to do. He is keen to do as his employer has asked, and also likes the idea of a directorship, but he doesn’t want to step into a boardroom where he carries risk but doesn’t get a hearing if he wants to raise concerns. What should Isiah do?

Mpho’s Answer

South Africa’s governance framework is heavily influenced by the King Reports, particularly King III, which underscores ethical leadership, independent judgment, accountability, and directors acting in the company’s best interests.

Although formal governance rules guide boards, early departures of directors before their tenure ends are uncommon. Such exits typically occur due to irreconcilable conflicts of interest, personal matters, overboarding that affects capacity and effectiveness, or untenable board dynamics. Removing a board member for non-performance or destructive behaviour presents challenges. It falls to the Chairman to provide performance feedback to address these issues.

In joint ventures, governance structures can be contractually customised if they are lawful and align with fiduciary duties. For Isiah, a clause allowing directors to remove another director is not inherently concerning. The critical issue is whether the board culture fosters constructive challenges, transparency, and respect for differing opinions.

Isiah should:

1. Clarify Legal Position: Seek confirmation from company counsel on the clause’s operation under South African company law and ensure shareholder rights are preserved.

2. Assess Business and Board Performance: Appetite for board changes outside of natural tenure is often linked to company performance. Successful businesses with strong leadership may tolerate weaker NED members. Conversely, poor performance typically increases scrutiny of board effectiveness.

3. Assess Board Culture Early: Use initial board cycles to gauge dynamics. Are questions encouraged? Does the chair invite contributions? Are dissenting views professionally handled?

4. Build a Strong Relationship with the Chair: Engage early to understand expectations and discuss how robust debate is promoted.

5. Contribute Credibly: Be prepared, focus on strategic and risk issues, and ask insightful questions to earn influence through consistency and insight.

6. Escalate Concerns Constructively: If governance issues arise, address them privately with the chair, escalating to the appointing shareholder if necessary.

7. Reassess Participation Periodically: Directorships involve personal accountability. If the environment restricts fulfilling duties, reconsider participation.

The true test is whether the boardroom allows independent thinking and responsible actions. Isiah should prioritize diplomacy, stakeholder management, and meaningful contributions over formal exit concerns.

Julie’s Answer

JV boards are tough, nominators often expect ‘their’ directors to breach confidentiality and act in their interests. International JVs in unfamiliar jurisdictions are tougher still. Isiah has realised that directorship is not as easy as applying rules and accepting accolades.

First do some ‘human due diligence’; look at the other directors and consider whose judgement you would trust and why. Do they have skills in the business of the JV, or are they financial or legal experts? Have they been in their current roles for a long or a short time? Will they benefit from Isiah’s skills, experience, and insights, or is he doubling up skills already on their board?

Who is the chair? Are they independent, quasi-independent, or aligned with a shareholder or founder? Do they have a track record of chairing successful JVs or is this their first one?

Next, Isiah needs to consider his own nominator; will they back him if the interests of the shareholders start to diverge and hard conversations are needed to protect the company’s interests? Are they aware of this clause and its potential ramifications? How do they feel about the potential for their co-investors to remove their nominee from the board? How easily can they exercise their rights as shareholders or communicate with their co-investors? Does this clause help or hinder their confidence in the smooth running of the board? Do they view the board as a legal necessity and the management as the key decision-makers or do they expect the board to lead?

Finally, Isiah needs to consider his own ability to contribute. He is diligent and keen. Does this board provide a worthwhile challenge at an achievable stretch? Does he have a fall-back position if the challenge is too great? Knowing the challenge, and his potential allies, is he willing to give it a try?

There is no simple right or wrong decision – only the one that feels most right for Isiah. If he is honest and diligent, he will succeed, if not on this board, then on another.

The origin of AltoPartners: Our Founding Chairman's personal perspective

2026-04-21T09:54:48Z

Albert Froom’s personal perspective on the founding of AltoPartners in 2006. In an era of fleeting global networks, AltoPartners stands apart — forged not by contracts, but by enduring relationships and unmanufactured trust built through time, openness, and shared experiences.

At the end of the 1990s, economies blossomed and business was thriving. My firm, Froom & Partners in the Netherlands, was growing, and clients were increasingly asking a simple question:

“Can you support us beyond our home market?”

As an entrepreneur, the answer, of course, was yes. But the reality was far more complex.

We were a small boutique firm, mainly specialising in Financial Services, deeply focused on quality and relationships. Expanding internationally was not just a question of geography; it was a question of trust. How could we serve clients across borders without compromising the standards they expected from us locally?

We explored the obvious options. Opening our own offices. Joining one of the large global firms. Building a loose network of contacts via meetings at airports exchanging business cards. Joining an existing European network that only seemed like a platform for bragging but no results. None of these felt right. They either diluted our independence or failed to meet the level of trust our clients deserved. The real question became very clear, very quickly:

Would I trust my most important client in the hands of these partners?

Frustratingly, each time, the answer was no.

Not having an international network moved from being a risk, to actually having a material impact on our bottom line because we were only getting the small searches instead of the big international ones.

It was also a complex time personally. Being married since 1985, but not being able to conceive children, Jenny and I decided on adoption from China. This was a difficult process in those days because China was only just opening. This ended up being a seven-year process from start to finally flying off to China to meet our first daughter Louise Ying Yuan in Xi’an. While this was an emotional process, I was so engrossed in building my own company – and then AltoPartners – that I was distracted from the difficult personal journey we were on. Happily, two years later, our family grew once more when we were able to travel to China to meet our second daughter Charlotta Kao Su in Chengdu. This being our second adoption meant that the process was much faster than the first adoption process.

The Search For Something Better

At the time, the world itself felt uncertain. The introduction of the euro, the looming Y2K concerns, the potential implosion of the internet bubble, the early tremors of global instability, all of it reinforced one thing: we needed perspectives beyond our own market to understand their local market impact and how clients were responding in different markets.

We needed sounding boards of trusted peers. Not just contacts, but partners we could learn from, challenge, and rely on.

Then we received an unexpected call from Paris; Leaders Trust wanted to meet. In those days, they had offices in France, Germany and Switzerland, and the Paris office was established by Philippe Bouvard (who led Egon Zehnder in Europe after he and Egon studied together in the USA) and Gerard Sakakini (formerly of Spencer Stuart France). Philippe, Gerard, and I met halfway in Brussels at one of my clubs, de Warande, for what was a discreet but decisive conversation. We successfully established a Partnership, with vested interest in each other via a holding company in Switzerland and I changed the name of my firm to Leaders Trust in the Netherlands.

For the first time, the idea of a different model began to take shape. As the discussions evolved, so did the ambition to growing our partnership in Europe, and later even in the USA.

From idea to conviction

Michael Boxberger left his role as COO of Korn Ferry and joined Leaders Trust to start LTI Inc in the USA. Over time, more partners joined. Accord Group brought strength across Europe (adding Germany and ECE countries) and Asia (India). The latter led in those days by the highly regarded “Doc” Agrawal, the father of Sonal (later becoming the first female Global Chair of AltoPartners) and Toral Patel. Finally, Oxygen added presence in the United Kingdom.

The idea of a truly global partnership was no longer theoretical – it was within reach.

But the journey was not straightforward.

There were setbacks. Plans that did not materialise. Structural challenges. Even the failure of the US entity that could have derailed the ambition entirely. Yet the conviction remained.

The birth of AltoPartners

Sonal and I started writing a Charter, and we had internal committees on pricing, name, structure etc. AltoPartners (A from Accord, LT from Leaders Trust and O from Oxygen) was born – strategically it was also beneficial that the name started with an A - the start of all alphabetical lists.

In 2006 after months of preparation, discussions, and debate, we came together in Prague. We made a defining decision at that meeting: to build an umbrella brand – AltoPartners – while allowing each firm to retain its local identity. At the time, I was not entirely convinced this was the right approach. In hindsight, it proved critical. It allowed firms to preserve their hard-earned local brand equity while benefiting from a global platform. It was also this approach that made us attractive to incredibly strong local firms, like DSG Global in USA and The Inzito Partnership in UK amongst others.

That balance remains one of our greatest strengths today.

The atmosphere in the Prague meeting was one of great friendship. Every country saw the possibilities and we were euphoric. Being last out of the room and being one of the youngsters, I was elected Chair, with assistance from colleagues to execute the role, without leaving the Managing Partner role of my own firm in the Netherlands. Proving that we really believed in “walking the talk”, it was during the first Partner meeting in Prague where Jana Martinova and I created the first cross border success by placing Lard Friese (today leading Aegon/Transamerica in the USA) as the CEO of Ceska Pojistovna, in those days the biggest insurance company in the Czech Republic. Great cooperation between the Czech and the Dutch. From day one!

What it really took

Building AltoPartners was not a formal assignment. It was not funded. It was not structured. It was driven by belief.

Looking back, one principle stands above all others. Partnership is not built through structures or processes. It is built through relationships.

For several years, I spent more than half my time travelling – often long-haul like 27 hours to New Zealand – meeting partners, building relationships, and shaping what the partnership could become. At the same time, I continued to run my own business in the Netherlands. This would not have been possible without the support of my colleagues, particularly Roelant van Barneveld, who quite literally “held the fortress” at home while I focused on building the partnership.

There was no immediate return. No guarantee of success.

Only the conviction that this was necessary if we wanted to remain relevant, with consistent high quality delivery, in an increasingly global world.

In the first years, the focus was on growing the group internationally by adding the right partners around the world. Sonal and I travelled everywhere through Asia and the Middle East together, adding partners through a systematic framework and approach, one we still use today. The need to be international proved itself year over year, and our cross-border business grew year over year. The accolades also came - by 2008 Sonal and I were both named in the top 150 executive search consultants by Business Week NY.

We often joked about “drinking beer together” – but behind that phrase is something fundamental. Trust is created through time, openness, and shared experiences. It cannot be manufactured.

In the meantime, in Prague, Jakub Černý created one of the enduring strong points of our partnership - the Intranet. Growing from humble beginnings as an Excel spreadsheet sent around to Country Managers on a quarterly basis, the creation of the intranet amplified our focus and helped bring structure to our reporting. And, supported by two global meetings a year and our philosophy of “drinking beer together”, our cooperation grew.

When I look back at my time as the first Chair, it was fabulous. The amount of people I could talk to, and learn from, and chasing a wild idea and seeing it materialized, was very rewarding. It made me grow as a human being and as a professional. I am proud of the structure and mainframe we created, and I am very proud of the amount of business sent abroad (one million Euro from one of my clients exported to colleagues across AltoPartners) and received. The expansion gave way to hiring our one and only topper; Julia Scheffer. She made such a difference. By her work she made it possible that the Chairs (an unpaid role) could also keep an eye on their own local business.

Personally, tragedy struck in 2015 when my trusted business partner Roelant died shortly before his 50th birthday from lung cancer, despite never having smoked in his life. He left behind his wife Maud and two young children. Our company was in shambles and life felt very unfair. It marked the start of a critical time of reflection for me.

It still matters today

The last years have not been easy for AltoPartners. The world has changed dramatically since 2006. There have been challenges along the way – economic crises, global disruption through the covid pandemic, technology has transformed how we work, wars in multiple regions, and personal losses that deeply affected our partnership.

But, some things have not changed.

Our clients need us now more than ever as trusted advisors, especially through our real local know-how, the “boots on the ground” expertise and industry experience. Our experience shows us that one needs to invest in business development internationally – you can’t just sit back and wait for the work to flow in. Every meaningful collaboration, every successful cross-border assignment, every lasting partnership begins with a conversation.

I am convinced that AltoPartners will keep playing its role in the world. It won’t be without ups and downs. But please look with altruistic eyes to business and you will be rewarded by business coming your way. I wish everybody the privilege of developing real friendships among the colleagues you meet at AltoPartners.

Vivat, floreat, crescat in aeternum.

AltoPartners at 20: a 50/50 Bet That Paid Off

2026-04-20T08:21:07Z

Today marks AltoPartners’ 20th anniversary. In April 2006, the international partnership of retained executive search and leadership consulting firms started out as a handful of like-minded professionals. It is now a global partnership of over 300 partners and consultants in 60 offices across 37 markets, routinely ranking among the top 10 global talent providers.

Not everyone would have predicted this. Commercial alliances are notoriously fickle. A McKinsey study, cited in the Harvard Business Review in 2010, found that business alliances are, at best, a 50/50 bet, a prognosis which hasn’t changed significantly in two decades. The same study found that the average lifespan of such alliances is just five to seven years. The reasons for these failures are a staple of business school curricula, but the AltoPartners story is proof that with an intentional approach, it is possible to turn an inherent structural vulnerability into an entity capable of withstanding a global financial crisis, a pandemic, hyperinflation, geopolitical upheavals, and monumental technological shifts.

This is what we’ve learned from 20 years of building a global alliance from scratch.

Be clear about the problem you are trying to solve. AltoPartners was founded to help partners support their clients worldwide. What appeared to be a problem of geography was, in fact, a trust issue: How to serve clients across borders without compromising quality?

“All the available off-the-shelf options either diluted our independence or failed to meet the level of trust our clients deserved. The real question became very clear, very quickly: Would I trust my most important client in the hands of these partners?”

Albert Froom, Founding Chair 2006-2009

Choose your partners wisely. It was clear from the start that the success or failure of the partnership would rest on the calibre of members and representation in key international markets. In the early years, the founding partners racked up impressive air miles to verify prospective partners’ expertise and values, conducting the levels of due diligence that their own clients had come to rely on. This remains the cornerstone of AltoPartners’ success.

“While we had some international bricks in place, we knew that if we truly wanted to be credible, we needed to be present in the right markets. Securing the United States was essential. At the same time, we expanded into emerging markets such as South Africa, Türkiye and parts of Asia Pacific. I remember travelling several times to Johannesburg and Istanbul to find the right partner while discovering and learning about the unique governance frameworks in these markets.”

Jean-Philippe Saint-Geours, Chair 2009-2014

Build a clear value proposition for partners. The decision to build an umbrella brand, allowing each firm to retain its local identity, proved a critical differentiator. In the AltoPartners model, firms preserve their hard-earned local brand equity without having to build or fund cross-border capability themselves. Crucially, because each firm maintains its own client list, there are no global off-limits agreements, giving clients access to a broader, deeper talent pool.

“This model rewards deep local knowledge. It has been instrumental in attracting strong local firms, such as DSG Global in the USA, The Inzito Partnership in the UK, and Search Partners International in South Africa, to name a few.”

Sonal Agrawal, Founding Partner and Chair 2020–2025

Light touch, high impact. From the outset, the governance model was based on trust, shared values, and clear behavioural norms, and not contractual obligations. The AltoPartners governance charter sets expectations upfront, but it is the day-to-day trust that truly guides interactions between partners and cements relationships. It also gives partners the freedom to build transformational advisory relationships with clients rather than pursuing transactional deals.

“This allowed us to pursue a winning formula, akin to the Star Alliance model, based on a small centralised hub to generate value for member firms while letting them stay true to their entrepreneurial nature, allowing them to determine what works best for their local markets.”

Julia Scheffer, AltoPartners’ first Executive Director

It is also what makes the model attractive to the right kind of person. The alliance was deliberately designed for entrepreneurs: limited bureaucracy, space to innovate, and a supportive environment built on trust and shared values.

“AltoPartners isn’t your typical executive search organisation. It’s a network of entrepreneurs – built for business, not bureaucracy. Governance is light, values are strong, and collaboration happens not out of obligation, but because partners genuinely want to work together. That distinction matters, especially to our clients and candidates.”

Thomas Heyn, Senior Partner

Place a premium on diversity and amplify it through engagement. In addition to the foundational aspects of executive search, all partners bring something distinctive to the table, whether deep country insights, sectoral knowledge, institutional memory, or internationally recognised expertise in key areas. Help is only ever an email or a Teams call away.

“Beyond the cross-border assignments, we cultivated social interactions marked by genuine laughter and camaraderie. Diversity – spanning age, gender, and culture – was naturally present and consistently enriching, making the collaboration genuinely enjoyable. This spirit continues today, despite the partnership’s substantial expansion and has allowed us to collectively navigate various market cycles, including periods of rapid growth and economic slowdowns.”

Corinne Klajda, Founding Partner

Professionalise key functions. Despite each firm having its own independent systems and structure, it became clear early on that the alliance needed more than just a secure internal platform to encourage collaboration. It also needed a strong external brand identity and a way to tell the AltoPartners story to a wider audience.

“A turning point came in 2014, when we professionalised the Office of the Chair, amplified the AltoPartners brand, and brought in an executive marketing assistant to help us be more visible. It was an important decision at the time as it required the operating committee to spend money in new areas. This proved to be an inflexion point for AltoPartners, setting the course for the next five years.”

Stephen Dallamore, Chair 2015-2020

Lead by example. The command-and-control orthodoxies that once defined the C-suite have given way to a more nuanced understanding of what effective leadership actually requires. As a consequence, values embedded into AltoPartners from the start, such as adaptability, diversity, authenticity, inclusion, and psychological safety, are in demand across all markets.

“In many ways, AltoPartners was ahead of its time. From the beginning, we valued authenticity and accessibility in how we work with clients and with each other. Today, even though we are multiple firms across many countries, we remain connected. We have shown resilience as markets and the world around us have changed, and even with the rapid change brought on by new technologies, we maintain our human-centric approach.”

Sorin Popa,Founding Partner

Innovation and targeted growth — the key to the next 20 years. AltoPartners has matured from a loose alliance into an interconnected partnership, which has been stress-tested by the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Both events proved, counterintuitively, to be periods of maximum opportunity, allowing members to tap into industries and geographies less affected by the prevailing shocks. It’s a model that will prove beneficial as the industry faces new headwinds that threaten to complicate cross-border hiring in ways that seemed unthinkable a decade ago. Equally, the partnership model allows partner firms to stay abreast of how generative AI is altering talent strategies by leveraging collective expertise. At the same time, the scope of what clients are willing to pay executive search firms to do is broadening, raising the premium on human judgement, contextual knowledge, and trusted relationships. In this context, local intelligence, relationship depth, and values-based collaboration make the AltoPartners model more relevant than ever.

“The next chapter of AltoPartners must be about innovation, evolution and growth. Not growth for the sake of size, but growth in relevance. Growth in how we support our clients. Growth in how we think about leadership in a changing world. We have a unique platform to build on – a partnership of exceptional boutique firms, deeply embedded in their markets, but globally connected in a way that is both agile and powerful. If we continue to strengthen that connection, to share more, to challenge ourselves more, and to adapt faster than the market, we will not only remain competitive: we will lead.”

Santiago Solis Arias, Global Chair

The Director's Dilemma - April 2026 Edition

2026-04-01T08:51:18Z

Contribution by Jana Martinová, the owner and manager of Accord Group in the Czech and Slovak Republic, and a founding partner of the AltoPartners global alliance. Jana is a long-term board member of the French-Czech chamber of commerce and has represented CEE on the global board of AltoPartners. Jana feels “at home” in different cultures and languages including German, Czech (both mother tongues), French, English (fluent), Russian and Serbian/Croatian (working level). She is based in Prague, Czechia.

The Director’s Dilemma - April 2026

This month our real-life board dilemma concerns a decisive CEO and a Committee Chair who feels left out of a relevant decision.

Helen chairs the people and culture committee of a government-owned utility business. At the last board meeting, the CEO reported that he had restructured the business to reduce the number of his direct reports from six to four, reducing costs to meet government savings and efficiency targets. He had already informed the people who were changing roles and reported the changes to the Minister.

She feels disrespected. Surely, he should have discussed these changes with the committee before implementing? She rang the Chair as soon as she read about the proposal in the board papers (a couple of paragraphs in the CEO report and a ‘for noting’ paper with the new organisation chart, role titles, and delegations). The Chair had not been aware of the changes until discussing the papers with the CEO before the meeting. He was surprised but unperturbed because, as he rightly said, operations and management structures are clearly within the CEO remit.

The People and Remuneration Committee Charter says that the committee is to advise on HR matters, oversee performance, and report to the board with recommendations to improve culture or the lived experience of staff at work. The Committee’s advice was not sought, and the changes were designed and implemented either ‘below the radar’ (covertly) or in between the board meetings (hastily). Helen likes to make careful plans and consult widely before changes. She is worried that unforeseen consequences will damage morale and/or performance.

How can Helen position her committee to play a bigger role in supporting the CEO and ensuring rigour when HR decisions are taken?

Jana’s Answer

Assuming a government-owned utility with a two-tier board, Helen’s role as Chair of the People and Culture (P&C) Committee is defined by corporate governance. The governance structure likely gives the CEO authority over organization and management decisions, which explains why the Chair was initially unaware of the CEO’s action. The CEO sought (retroactive) approval by reporting the decision to the Minister, a higher authority.

Immediate Recommendations

● De-personalize: Helen should set aside personal feelings; the omission concerns the CEO’s relationship with the entire Board of Directors (BoD), not just her.

● Avoid Opposition: She should not oppose a change the CEO has already implemented.

● Manage External Expectations: She should address third-party expectations using the argument/stance of the Chair.

● Formal Note: The Chair must formally state and record that the CEO made the decision without seeking prior approval from the Board.

Future Role Reflection

Helen should reflect on the future role of the P&R Committee by:

Reviewing Expertise Areas: Re-visiting corporate governance and past Board meeting notes to identify areas where the committee’s expertise was previously sought (e.g., remuneration, social climate, trade union negotiation).
Clarifying Involvement: Distinguishing between regular/recurring involvement in people processes and ad-hoc advice.
Proactive Engagement: Proposing initiatives and offering her skills in areas critical to the CEO and BoD to generate trust and demand for the committee’s future involvement. Implementation & Czech Context

To implement these changes, Helen requires support from her Chair and other Directors, and the Chair should involve the Minister.

In the Czech Republic, Supervisory Boards are increasingly moving beyond a formal/strategic consulting role to deeper corporate development involvement. The P&R committee is frequently engaged on remuneration and may face public scrutiny for top-manager appointments. Coordination between the Board and management in state-owned companies is an evolving, patience-demanding process, often complicated by less transparent decision-making due to frequent changes in Ministers and Directors.

Julie’s Answer

Helen is right to be concerned and should be even more concerned that her Chair was also unaware of the proposed changes. Ministers and CEOs can sometimes view the board as a cosy sinecure to reward past political favours rather than a source of value for the business.

I would suggest that Helen approach the matter with a positive attitude and ask “How can my committee help you to implement these changes whilst minimising disruption and potential ‘fallout’?”

She needs clear understanding of how the board, and its committees, is viewed by management. A 360o review of the board and its committees should be commissioned as soon as possible. Ideally the Minister and the Ministerial advisor(s) should be asked to contribute, as well as the CEO and their direct reports. The Chair should ‘champion’ this process and ensure that a qualified consultant who will provide unvarnished feedback is selected for the task.

If, as I suspect, the results suggest that the board is not seen as adding value, Helen’s task will be to work with the CEO to redesign the Board’s operations and specify its role and remit. This may also require the board to consider its composition and recommend changes to the Minister.

Government boards are not easy places; you have accountability but can easily be sidelined or undermined if you do not add tangible value and earn the respect of your Minister, the management team, and the wider ecosystem of stakeholders. When your value is clear and understood, you can change the world. And the best way to position yourself for that change is to offer assistance and support. Only if your offers are rebuffed, should you consider walking away.

Closing the Gender Leadership Gap : A Review of Legislative and Real-World Outcomes - AltoPartners International Women's Day 2026 Report

2026-03-05T08:13:04Z

Despite decades of progress in gender equality, women remain significantly underrepresented in corporate leadership. While many countries have introduced board gender quotas and diversity targets, the impact on executive leadership has been far more limited.

The AltoPartners International Women’s Day 2026 report — Closing the Gender Leadership Gap : A Review of Legislative and Real-World Outcomes — examines whether these policies have translated into meaningful progress for women in senior leadership roles.

Drawing on data from across the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, the research explores how different regulatory approaches, including mandatory board quotas, voluntary targets, and countries with no formal policies, influence gender representation in both boardrooms and the C-suite.

Key Findings

The research reveals several important insights shaping the global conversation on gender equality in leadership:

Board quotas have increased female representation on boards, but the impact on C-suite leadership remains limited.
Countries with voluntary diversity targets often show stronger executive-level representation, suggesting organisational culture and leadership commitment play a critical role.
Women’s representation declines significantly at senior leadership levels, highlighting persistent structural barriers in the leadership pipeline.

These findings highlight a critical challenge: legislation alone is not enough to close the gender leadership gap.

Download the Full Report

The AltoPartners International Women’s Day 2026 report provides a comprehensive global analysis of gender representation across boards and executive leadership teams, along with insights into how organisations can accelerate progress toward gender parity. AltoPartners is committed to furthering gender diversity by identifying, cultivating and placing suitable candidates in the boardroom.

Download and read the full Closing the Gender Leadership Gap : A Review of Legislative and Real-World Outcomes - AltoPartners International Women’s Day 2026 Report to explore the data, regional comparisons, and policy insights shaping the future of women in leadership.

With contributions and leading insights from Sonal Agrawal; Joo-Lee Aw; Andrea Brand; Matthias Bruchner; Daniele Cuminale; Julie Garland McLellan; Regina Graf; Murat Kaan Güneri; Claudia Hardy; Veronika Kaštovská; Corinne Klajda; Carol Leonard; Nicolás Mora Schrader; Mpho Nkeli; Sandra Olive; Christian Rolin; priscila Schapke; Santiago Solis Arias; Charlotte Wetterlundh and Julia Zdrahal-Urbanek. With thanks to our data partner Findem for providing the quantitative data and the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) Managing Directors Lynne Murphy-Rivera; Sarah Mortimer and Clare Mahon for providing key regional insights.

Researched and written by Gail Strauss and Renee Moodie

CEO Wanted. Leadership Not So Much

2026-03-03T11:20:52Z

By Richard Sterling, Partner at AltoPartners Australia.

This article was first posted on LinkedIn. To read the original post, click here.

The truth of a CEO role reveals itself in the first conversation with the Board. It’s there, in how the Board sees its mandate and the space it is genuinely prepared to give a leader to lead.

The arts organisation I recently worked with had genuine momentum with a growing reputation and strong community presence. It had also burned through two CEOs. As our conversation progressed, the reason became clear.

Board members remained closely involved in programming, maintained direct relationships with artists and partners and expected the CEO to lead while they stayed embedded in operations

Then another organisation. Different sector. Same dynamic.

The board of a small charity appointing its first-ever CEO was hesitant in a way that was entirely understandable. Every relationship, decision and donor conversation had passed through their hands.

They kept returning to the same instinct: staying close, being available, remaining involved. But what they were describing without quite saying it was a CEO who would carry the weight of the role without the full authority of it.

In both cases, the role was clear. The transition was not

The success of a CEO appointment depends not only on the quality of the candidate but on the board’s readiness to transfer authority. Without that transfer, the appointment proceeds, the title is conferred and the organisation continues to function as it always has.

Staff work out quickly where authority actually sits and take their decisions accordingly. The CEO is left accountable for outcomes they cannot control.

Capable leaders recognise this quickly. When authority and accountability are misaligned, experienced CEOs leave or simply refuse to join. The result is shorter tenures and repeated searches. Boards begin to wonder why the right candidate keeps proving elusive. In these situations, the candidate is not the problem.

The board’s motivation for holding on vary. The effect on the organisation does not.

When the board won’t step back, the CEO cannot step in. The organisation doesn’t necessarily fail. It stalls.

The most useful conversation a board can have before beginning a CEO search is not about the candidate. It is about themselves.

What are we genuinely prepared to hand over? What does the CEO need from us in order to lead effectively?

Boards that cannot answer those questions honestly are not yet ready to hire and appointing ahead of that readiness is a cost that falls on the organisation, the incoming leader and ultimately, the community the organisation exists to serve.

The Director's Dilemma - March 2026 Edition

2026-03-02T07:45:46Z

Produced by Julie Garland-McLellan, Consultant at AltoPartners Australia and non-executive director and board consultant based in Sydney, Australia.

Contribution by Mario Mora, Founder & Senior Partner of Equation Partners / AltoPartners Chile. Mario was a board member of the Chilean Banking Association (2000-2002) and the Corporación Educacional Santo Tomás (2004-2008) and was the LATAM representative on the AltoPartners Operating Committee. Mario speaks both Spanish and English fluently and holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the Universidad de Chile. He is based in Santiago, Chile.

The Director’s Dilemma - March 2026

This month our real-life board dilemma concerns a conflict of interest that is shared by all members of a board committee. I hope you will enjoy the sample responses and consider how you might choose to approach a similar issue.

Graeme chairs the Professional Standards Committee for the board of his Professional Association. The board started remunerating directors two years ago. The fees are a pittance compared to the workload and responsibility, but it is a token that is appreciated by the directors. A member has now written to Graeme, asking if it is good governance for the Chair of a board to also chair the people and remuneration committee when the people and remuneration committee determines the fees for board members. Graeme was about to respond confidently that it is standard practice for chairs to also chair the remuneration and nominations committee because they are the leader of the board and have most interest in ensuring appropriate composition, skills, and culture. But then he started to think about the principle that nobody should determine their own remuneration and wondered if that was still right. The constitution states that members of the board should not act if they have a conflict of interest. It then goes on to specifically exclude conflicts of interest that all directors share, such as their membership of the association. The committee is composed entirely of directors who are also association members, but Graeme is wondering if that is a ‘good enough excuse’ rather than ‘good enough governance’.

How would you advise him to respond?

Mario’s Answer

I think Graeme should avoid framing this as “standard practice” and instead anchor his response in governance principles.

In Chile, under local regulations, the core principle is clear, directors should not participate in decisions that directly determine their own remuneration. Even where legally permissible, perception risk can erode trust, particularly in professional associations where legitimacy is reputational.

It is true that in many listed companies the Board Chair sits on, and sometimes chairs, the nominations and remuneration committee. However, best practice usually introduces safeguards. For example, in most Chilean publicly listed companies, the Chair recuses himself when the committee discusses the Chair’s own fees, and the final recommendation is approved by independent directors or the full board without his vote.

In this case, the argument that “all directors share the same conflict” is legally defensible but governance wise insufficient. The question is not only actual conflict, but perceived conflict. In membership organizations, that distinction matters greatly.

My advice to Graeme would be:

Acknowledge that the question is legitimate and aligned with good governance.
Clarify that while it is common for Chairs to lead nominations and remuneration, they should not participate in determining their own compensation.
Propose a safeguard going forward, for example, delegating the discussion on director fees to an independent committee member, with the Chair formally recusing himself from that item and abstaining from the vote.
If appropriate, consider member ratification of director fees.

By responding with openness and strengthening the process, Graeme protects both himself and the institution. In governance, perception managed well is credibility earned.

Julie’s Answer

It is easy to do what ‘everybody’ does whilst ignoring inconvenient principles; Graeme should thank the Member who raised the concern, as this will help him achieve better practice.

It is common for a Board Chair to chair the Nominations and Remuneration Committee; there is no need to abandon that practice. Graeme should check his board’s conflict of interest policy and the disclosures that have been made. He should also ensure that he is familiar with constitution and the rules around director nomination and remuneration.

For most meetings of the Board, and the Nominations and Remuneration Committee, a simple declaration of interests should suffice to ensure directors are mindful of their conflicts and how these might be perceived by the members of the association.

An independent skills-based appointment to the board or committee can help to bring a different perspective on how other boards, outside of this profession, handle such issues.

For the meeting at which the Board considers its own remuneration, the committee members should ensure that they have expert outside advice on the reasonable ranges of director fees and current market conditions. They may wish to bring in an independent chair to facilitate the discussion of remuneration, or to chair the whole meeting. Or they may choose to simply use the Chair they elected and note that the Chair is conflicted as are they all.

Transparency is important. The Board should report annually on the total quantum of remuneration for the directors and how this is applied across the board members, for example:

– do committee chairs receive additional remuneration?

– does the Chair receive more than the other directors?

– etc.

They should also make available an extract from the independent expert’s advice on reasonable remuneration each year, or each time remuneration is adjusted, and ask the expert to attend the AGM and respond to questions from the members if there are any.

Pay Transparency: Regulatory Mandate or Strategic Lever?

2026-02-25T13:19:23Z

This article was first published in Italian on the TreviSearch / AltoPartners Italy website. To read the original blog post, click here

What really changes with EU Directive 2023/970? (and why many companies aren’t ready)

1. A change that goes beyond compliance

With the adoption of EU Directive 2023/970, the European Union introduces a principle destined to profoundly impact the organization of companies: pay transparency as a concrete tool to ensure equal treatment.

The formal focus is on the gender pay gap. The real impact, however, concerns the entire people management system.

It’s not just about:

– publish salary ranges

– produce reports

– respond to employee requests

It is about demonstrating that the pay system is consistent, objective and defensible

And this is where the difficulties begin, and most companies will fail not because of a lack of data, but because of a lack of processes and structure.

2. The real critical point: “work of equal value”

The Directive doesn’t simply require comparing salaries. It requires demonstrating that different roles are evaluated according to comparable and transparent criteria.

In practice:

responsibility

– complexity

– impact on business

– required skills

They must be measurable, documented and shared.

In the reality of many companies (not just SMEs):

– job descriptions are outdated or inconsistent

– the levels are historical, not designed

– pay differentials are the result of individual negotiations/mere seniority

– the memory of “why Tizio earns more than Caio” is often informal

– the responsibilities do not correspond to the role

This makes the system fragile, not just non-compliant.

3. Pay transparency = organizational exposure

The Directive introduces new rights for workers:

– access to average salary information

– possibility of contesting unjustified differentials

– reversal of the burden of proof in the event of litigation

In other words: if you can’t explain your pay system, someone else will do it for you (unions, lawyers, courts, the media).

The risk is not only legal:

– internal tensions

– loss of confidence in management

– reputational damage

– difficulty attracting talent

4. A mistake to avoid: reducing everything to a numerical exercise

Many companies are approaching the issue as a simple:

“Let’s do an analysis of the gender pay gap and see what we come up with.”

It’s a short-sighted approach. Without:

– a clear job architecture

– role evaluation criteria

– a pay equity framework

any number is contestable.

Transparency doesn’t come from data. It comes from system design.

5. From obligation to opportunity: what forward-thinking companies can do

Forward-thinking organizations that address the Directive in a structured way today can achieve concrete benefits:

– more solid and manageable remuneration systems

– greater coherence between roles, performance and pay

– reduction of legal and union risk

– strengthening the employer value proposition

– greater management credibility

– Employer Branding (Positioning yourself as a transparent and fair company attracts the best talent, particularly among the younger generations who value corporate ethics)

– Trust and Engagement (Transparency increases employee satisfaction, reducing turnover and improving overall productivity.)

In short: a competitive advantage that is difficult to recover for those who move late.

In many cases, it is an opportunity to put things in order where things have been built up for years.

6. The Trevisearch / AltoPartners Italy point of view

At Trevisearch / AltoPartners Italy, we believe that pay transparency is not an ideological issue, but a governance issue that speaks volumes about leadership, accountability, values, and the sustainability of decisions.

Who selects, evaluates and develops leaders:

– must understand the real value of roles

– must be able to read organizational inconsistencies

– must help companies make their choices sustainable over time

For this reason, we approach EU Directive 2023/970 not as a requirement, but as an organizational strengthening project , which unites:

– job architecture

– pay equity

– leadership

– sustainability of managerial decisions

7. An open question for management

The Directive will enter into full force in June 2026. But the question is already current:

“Are we able to explain – simply, objectively, and convincingly – why people in the company are paid the way they are paid?”

If the answer is uncertain, the issue isn’t the Directive. It’s the system… and it’s best to manage it (methodically) before it becomes a problem!

Across our European partner firms, we are ready to help you transform what may seem like a problem into an opportunity.

Leading in Uncertain Times: The Human Qualities Defining 2026’s Most Effective CEOs

2026-02-04T11:26:33Z

As a global executive search partnership, AltoPartners has a front-row view of how leadership is changing, not just in theory, but in the lived realities of boards, CEOs and senior teams as they wrestle with a digitally amped world in permanent flux. Across markets and sectors, one signal is getting louder: the profile of the leader who succeeds is changing.

Conversations with AltoPartners search practitioners and transformation specialists worldwide reveal a consistent pattern. The CEOs most likely to thrive are intentional, grounded, and deeply people-centred. Far from the “leader-as-hero” archetype, the emerging model is collaborative, humble, and unafraid to seek input while carefully balancing the need to be decisive and action-oriented. In the words of Santiago Solis, Global Chair of AltoPartners and partner at Executive Connection in Colombia: “Ironically, technology has put a premium on CEOs with a human touch.”

As technology accelerates, the imperative to appoint leaders primarily for their technical competence is diminishing. Jamie Garner, head of transformation at the Inzito Partnership / AltoPartners UK, puts it plainly: “In the era of artificial intelligence and advanced automation, the leaders who stand out will be those who integrate empathy, emotional intelligence and well-being into the heart of leadership KPIs, and not simply as a bolt-on.”

Humility – the new agility

Decision-making – the core responsibility of any CEO – is being tested by tectonic technological and environmental forces that are driving demographic shifts, widening inequality, and deepening polarisation. In this environment, agility alone is no longer a differentiator. What matters more is the ability to widen the frame by engaging multiple stakeholders and transcending traditional organisational boundaries.

As Garner points out, agility without collaboration can quickly become circular: “You can pivot endlessly, but if you haven’t created an ecosystem that encourages people to collaborate in new ways, you risk pivoting in place. The leader’s role is to facilitate co-creation – not to be the centre of it.”

The emphasis on collaboration requires CEOs to demonstrate a high degree of humility and self-awareness to prevent ego from getting in the way of seeking help and working with people they have little in common with. Angelique Auguste dit Marquis, executive coach and transformation advisor at AltoPartners Germany, calls this the power to activate collective intelligence. “A dash of humility goes a long way. It fosters humour, empathy, and connection, all essential to creativity and network-building. Self-awareness is not only an antidote to ego-driven decisions but also the gateway to collaboration,” she observes wryly.

Deep listening as a superpower

Trust, the basis for all successful collaborative endeavours, begins with listening. “Leaders who listen actively earn trust and catch nuances that others miss, allowing them to look at issues from different perspectives and uncover blind spots. Fortunately, it’s a skill that can be learned and cultivated,” says Auguste dit Marquis.

Deep listening signals a leader’s ability to regulate attention, tolerate complexity, and understand multiple perspectives simultaneously. “Deep listeners create psychological safety, detect weak signals in culture and risk, and navigate conflict, acknowledging the interdependences of people throughout the organisation,” she explains. “By staying curious rather than being prematurely certain, they foster innovation and adaptive learning; crucial qualities in leading in a world shaped by rapid technological change and geopolitical uncertainty.”

Creators of safe spaces, custodians of organisational well-being

The ability to create a safe environment is emerging as a critical differentiator. Leadership burnout and team exhaustion have become strategic risks. CEOs are increasingly being called upon to actively manage workload, recovery time, and boundaries as levers of productivity, retention, and innovation.

The pressure is amplified by fears of job displacement and structural change. Murat Kaan Güneri, managing partner of MKG & Partners / AltoPartners Türkiye, notes: “Uncertainty amplifies stress. Leaders must establish psychological safety through consistent, clear and authentic communication – especially when delivering bad news. It helps teams stay focused and resilient amid ambiguity.”

A distinctive cognitive mix

Beyond personal qualities, future-ready CEOs stand out in how they think and learn. “Top executives are increasingly defined by insatiable curiosity, rigorous critical thinking, mental agility, and the stamina to persevere,” notes Garner. These qualities underpin a genuine growth mindset. “Without curiosity, leaders cannot question assumptions or anticipate unintended consequences, especially as AI takes on more of the technical heavy lifting,” says Solis.

Strategically savvy, ethically grounded

While strategy remains central to the CEO role, leaders must now operate fluently across a wider range of domains. They need to “speak” technology, governance and multi-stakeholder dynamics with equal ease – and integrate these into a coherent vision. Digital fluency is a core part of this. “We don’t expect all CEOs to be AI experts, but we do expect them to be tech-fluent, which is a step beyond basic literacy,” says Sonal Agrawal, Managing Partner, Accord India / AltoPartners India.

AI, automation and digital platforms are now strategic levers. CEOs must ask the right questions, evaluate risk, and integrate technology with clear ROI and sound governance. This all rests on a strong ethical compass. Moral clarity must be embedded in decisions from the outset, not applied retroactively.

Execution under pressure: the return of operational leadership

Agrawal notes a marked shift in board priorities over the past year. As complexity rises across regulation, supply chains and multi-site operations, boards are increasingly favouring execution certainty and operational resilience over growth optionality. “In India especially, the sharp rise in COO appointments reflects the need for experienced operators to stabilise scale, governance and delivery.

“Across markets, leadership demand is migrating from expansion narratives to margin defence, risk management and institutional maturity. Experience is being priced as insurance, with boards placing renewed value on judgement, pattern recognition and stakeholder credibility. Boards are also looking for people-centred leaders who can hunker down, absorb pressure and translate strategy into reliable execution by bringing a broad range of stakeholders along with them.”

Clarity in the absence of consensus

While expanding the information base through consultation is necessary to improve decision quality, it won’t always result in consensus. Daniele Cuminale, partner at TreviSearch / AltoPartners Italy, says that more than ever, boards will be looking for CEOs capable of making unpopular decisions based on what the organisation needs: “Broadening input is about improving decision quality, not sharing accountability. Objectives are not aspirational statements, but tools of governance that guide priorities, trade-offs and decisions when pressure is highest. Trust and engagement follow when leaders demonstrate coherence between stated objectives and the decisions they take under pressure, including difficult ones. In this environment, successful CEOs are defined by the ability to establish clarity, absorb the cost of choice, and translate direction into disciplined action.”

The new playbook: being pluralist

All this represents a decisive break from the hero-CEO mythology that shaped corporate life in the pre-COVID and pre-generative AI eras, only five and three years ago, respectively.

As organisations move deeper into uncharted territory shaped by climate change and artificial intelligence, leadership will be judged less by visibility or bravado, and more by the ability to build resilient systems that outlast the individual at the centre. The most valuable CEOs will be pluralist leaders: technically literate, ethically grounded, and emotionally intelligent; capable of widening input without diluting accountability, anchoring decisions in clear objectives, and maintaining coherence between intent and action, particularly where stability, execution and trust matter more than speed.

“As trusted executive search partners and leadership advisors, we play a critical role in guiding boards through this paradigm shift,” says Solis. “That means reframing CEO success profiles, stress-testing candidates against complexity rather than charisma, and identifying leaders with the cognitive range, humility and integrative capacity to translate uncertainty into durable advantage.” Further reading

Ask Alto: How leadership can tackle burnout

Ask Alto: What is “stagility” and why do leaders need to know?

Ask Alto: How to make AI work in your organisation

Ask Alto: What is strategic empathy, and why is it a key leadership skill in 2025?

The Director's Dilemma - February 2026 Edition

2026-02-02T08:24:14Z

Produced by Julie Garland-McLellan, Consultant at AltoPartners Australia and non-executive director and board consultant based in Sydney, Australia.

Contribution by Lauren E. Smith. Lauren is Managing Partner and Co-Head, Board Practice, DSG Global / AltoPartners USA. She has been named three times to the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Director 100 as a top governance professional in the country. She is the current Chair Governance and past President of the NACD Florida Chapter. She is an NACD Board Leadership Fellow and an NACD Certified Director. Lauren is a Board Member of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and sits on the Advisory Board of Women Executive Leadership. She is based in Miami, Florida, USA

The Director’s Dilemma - February 2026

This month our real-life board dilemma concerns a board that allowed executives to usurp the role of the board and is now suffering the consequences.

Fenella sits on the board of a listed company that is still chaired by the founder and run with strong emphasis on delivering what the founder needs. She has always taken heart that, although the board is sometimes left out of the loop on decisions that exceed management delegations, everyone acts in the good commercial interests of the company and there is no ‘real’ conflict of interest.

A few months ago, the CFO (who has been with the company since it started) was struggling with the demands of the combined CFO/Co Sec role and the board discussed that they should consider appointing a Company Secretary with listed company expertise. There was no mention of the discussion in the minutes, and Fenella didn’t ask for it to be inserted because there had been no decision. At the next board meeting, the CFO introduced the board to a new Company Secretary whom he had recruited. The new Company Secretary was asked to minute the board’s in camera conversation so Fenella didn’t feel comfortable raising her concern that the board had not been involved in the recruitment or that the new secretary had no formal qualifications or experience with listed boards.

The CFO has continued to struggle; he is not coping with the accurate timely disclosures needed to comply with the exchange rules. Fenella suspects her fellow independent director - who chairs the audit committee - shares her concerns. She would like the board to discuss performance management and training, demotion or replacement. She is hesitant to approach the chair directly and alone but also hesitates to raise the issue in the board or in camera as the new Company Secretary is always present and clearly feels that the CFO is her boss and deserves her loyalty.

What should Fenella do?

Lauren’s Answer

Fenella’s instincts are sound, and the situation now requires deliberate, well-documented action rather than further restraint. Three priorities should guide her next steps: allies, process, and record.

First, she should align privately with the independent director who chairs the audit committee. A one-on-one conversation framed around regulatory risk, disclosure obligations, and board accountability (not personalities) is appropriate and prudent.

By seeking alignment, the issue becomes an audit-committee-level governance matter. Second, she should use a formal board process to create a protected forum. She can request that the chair convene an in-camera session of independent directors only, explicitly excluding management and the Company Secretary. This is standard practice on listed boards and avoids the loyalty conflict currently chilling discussion.

If the chair resists, that resistance itself is a governance signal that should be noted. Third, Fenella should insist on proper documentation going forward. She can ask that concerns about CFO performance, disclosure compliance, and the Company Secretary’s qualifications be reflected in minutes or in a confidential board or audit committee memo. Silence in the record is exposure for directors.

Fenella should advocate for a structured response for the CFO performance issues: an external assessment of finance and disclosure capability, targeted training with deadlines, and a clear escalation path if performance does not improve. On the Company Secretary, the board should clarify reporting lines (to the board, not the CFO) and reassess whether the role requires replacement or supplementation.

If these steps are blocked, Fenella should consider independent legal advice—not as an escalation tactic, but as protection of her own fiduciary position.

Julie’s Answer

Fenella is right to be concerned. The CFO should not be making the appointment of a company secretary without input from the board. Neither, for that matter, should the Chair. Fenella is dangerously distant from the mechanisms of control and direction; she needs to get back into the processes for delegation and decision-making ASAP.

She could start with a conversation with the other independent director. Hopefully he will understand the risks of management making decisions that should be reserved for the board and support her in addressing the issues.

The Audit Committee Chair could review delegations to ensure that these are contemporary and appropriate. This should include delegations for hiring, representing the company, and/or entering into contracts, not just financial levels of signing authority. Fenella needs to discuss this with him and ascertain if he is willing to start this process. If he is not, then she can suggest it herself at a board meeting.

Next, Fenella should have a candid discussion with the Board Chair and suggest that, as a minimum, the Company Secretary receive training on company secretarial duties. A company secretary is a key element of the board’s governance; directors need to rely on her judgement. If the chair is amenable, Fenella could next suggest that a skilled professional company secretary be brought in - by the board - on a part-time basis to establish processes and help train the new Company Secretary. She should also raise the issue of ‘board only’ time excluding non-directors.

If Fenella’s colleagues are willing to enhance their governance, she should stay and help. If they are not, she should seriously consider the risks of being on a listed board that has no control over its governance processes and financial disclosures.

The Director's Dilemma - December 2025 Edition

2025-12-01T09:09:34Z

Produced by Julie Garland-McLellan, Consultant at AltoPartners Australia and non-executive director and board consultant based in Sydney, Australia.

Contribution by Dr Julia Zdrahal-Urbanek. Julia has successfully built up the Austrian executive search business of AltoPartners. She has worked in the manufacturing & technology sector, for NGOs, in financial services and for health/biotech/pharma clients. With almost 20 years’ experience in executive search, Julia started her executive career in London, then worked at the Medical Faculty of Wuerzburg, Germany, and moved to the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, Vienna. From 2016 to 2025 Julia holds an Operating Committee role in the global AltoPartners organisation. She is regularly invited to speak about international trends covering board composition as well as board diversity and holds a Non Executive Director role in a family business. Julia holds a science master’s degree and a PhD in Psychology and speaks German and English.

The Director’s Dilemma - December 2025

This month our real-life board dilemma concerns a new director who clearly doesn’t understand the role and a chair that appears reluctant to act.

Elle is in her second term on a board. She pushed successfully for directors to get email addresses with the company domain and to receive their papers and other notifications using only this address. The board approved this initiative as the non-profit had no IT department and ‘couldn’t justify’ investing in a portal.

At the last board election, a new young person was voted onto the board “as IT director”. There had been no discussion of skills gaps or candidates, and the directors only knew of the candidate when he appeared on the notice of meeting. It seems that there was no induction provided, which is hardly surprising as Elle didn’t receive one either, but Elle had volunteered to help with this and didn’t hear back from the Chair or CEO. Her invitation for ‘coffee’ and chat about the board - and governance in general - was ignored.

The new director is not a qualified IT person or experienced on any boards. He has been given an access to the server that includes ability to read other directors’ emails. Sensitive information from CEO and other board members is now viewed by a director with little experience on the board or understanding of governance boundaries. Staff have complained to Elle that he wants things to be done without board approval, accesses their email accounts, and insists they should respond to his requests.

What should Elle do?

Julia’s Answer

This case highlights governance and role-clarity issues, informal processes in the election of board members, and structural weaknesses within a Tier-1 non-profit board. Elle has attempted to introduce more structure and improve data protection. For example, she ensured all board members use an official company email address. She recognises that the new director is neither qualified nor aware of the boundaries of his role. Even if appointed as an “IT Director,” a board member is not an operational IT manager but part of a strategic governing body. Her attempts to raise these issues are ignored by the Chair and CEO or perceived as interference. However, it is entirely appropriate for her to insist on a written clarification of role responsibilities (for all board members!). Only a documented, non-negotiable definition of roles supports proper governance-aligned behaviour.

Elle needs to document everything in writing (e.g., staff complaints, observations regarding the IT Director’s behaviour, the Chair’s and CEO’s lack of response) and be fully aware of her own director’s duties (Care and Diligence, Act in Good Faith, Avoid Misuse of Information). Her first step should be to approach the Chair directly and outline her concerns with reference to governance gaps, lack of best practice, and potential liability risks, and record this formally. If the Chair does not respond, Elle should place the issue on the agenda of the next board meeting.

The next step would be to speak directly with the Company Secretary or Governance Officer, seek external advice (e.g., the AICD or equivalent bodies in other countries), and ultimately consider her own resignation.

For readers in a European Tier-2 board system, for example in Germany or Austria, where a clear separation exists between supervision (Aufsichtsrat) and management, some steps differ; for example, there is not always a Company Secretary or Governance Officer in an NGO. However, supervisory board members have oversight duties and no operational authority. Elle must understand the supervisory board’s duty of care and potential personal liability. Her approach would similarly be to inform the supervisory board chair, both informally and formally, place GDPR and governance risks on the agenda, involve the data protection officer if necessary, and consider resignation if the chair fails to act.

Julie’s Answer

Something is very wrong. Elle has been on this board for more than one term and yet her concerns are being ignored even though she has previously driven a valuable change in this board’s practice. Unauthorised access to emails is a breach of privacy legislation and a major cause for concern.

Elle should approach her closest ally on the board and ask them:

How they feel about the general skills and capabilities of this board
What do they think about the new director
What they have observed in the relationship between Elle and the Chair
What they have observed in the relationships between staff, the board, and the CEO
Why they think staff are taking complaints to Elle rather than the CEO

This is data gathering. She should listen and acknowledge the information, possibly clarify, but not challenge it. Then she should develop her plan of approach to the CEO and Chair, using the communication style that is most likely to get her heard.

Maybe ‘coffee and chat’ was too casual to get attention and she needs to be more formal. Or perhaps she is seen as a ‘squeaky wheel’ or a stickler for details that don’t add value. Or is there a relationship between the new director and her colleagues that is making them reluctant to act? Elle needs to understand the situation before she can encourage the Chair and CEO to put the best interests of the business first.

If, after a more carefully modulated approach, she is still ignored, Elle should place the matter on the next board agenda for discussion. She should do this in writing and after checking the constitution. The most urgent concerns are privacy and the overstepping of the board/management boundary to giving staff instructions. She can wait on the induction for a time when these important issues are resolved.

Interviewing Senior Candidates: In-Person vs. Virtual and the Nuances That May Be Missed

2025-10-16T08:45:41Z

This post was originally published by Karla Dorsch, Founder and Managing Partner Evrima / AltoPartners Abu Dhabi, on LinkedIn. To view the original post, click here.

These days, it feels like half our lives happen on Zoom. Job interviews are no exception. For senior roles especially, the question often comes up: is it better to meet a candidate on screen, or in the flesh?

Virtual interviews definitely have their perks. They save time, money, and jet lag. You can include board members dialling in from three different time zones, and candidates don’t have to rearrange their lives to fly in for a first conversation. As a way to cast the net wide and quickly get a feel for someone’s background, virtual interviews are great.

But here’s the catch: senior hires aren’t just about résumés and technical know-how. They’re about presence, leadership, and that hard-to-define “do I trust this person to steer the ship?” factor. And that’s where video calls can let us down.

On screen, you only see a cropped version of someone, usually head and shoulders. You miss the posture, the way they walk into a room, how they shake hands, or even how they react to small talk. A shaky internet connection or bad lighting can make a brilliant leader look flat. And those in-between moments, the coffee chats, the hallway introductions, often say more about a person’s style than the formal Q&A. None of that happens when the call ends with a click.

That said, there’s a flip side: today’s executives do need to connect virtually. If a leader can’t engage their team over video, that’s a red flag. So seeing how a candidate comes across on screen is still valuable, it just shouldn’t be the only test.

The sweet spot is a hybrid approach. Start with virtual interviews to save time and filter down the list. But when it gets serious, when you’re about to pick the person who’ll set the tone for the whole organization, bring them in. Meet them face-to-face, see how they interact with people, and feel the energy in the room.

In the end, video is efficient, but people are three-dimensional. For senior hires, you want to see the whole picture before making an important hiring decision for your organization.

Will AI Supersede Human Interface in South Africa?

2025-10-15T07:54:58Z

This blog past was first published by Search Partners International (SPi) / AltoPartners South Africa. To read the original post, click here.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a sci fi fantasy, it is here, reshaping how we work, communicate, and live. From chatbots handling customer queries to algorithms sifting through CVs, AI is making waves globally. But in South Africa, with our unique blend of cultures, economic challenges, and tech adoption, the question looms: Will AI ever fully replace the human interface? Let us unpack this with a local lens, exploring what it means for businesses, job seekers, and our society.

The Rise of AI in South Africa

AI is already part of our daily lives, even if we do not always notice it. Whether it is the virtual assistant on your phone, predictive text in your WhatsApp chats, or algorithms curating your Takealot recommendations, AI is quietly transforming how we interact with technology. In South Africa, businesses are adopting AI rapidly. Retail giants use AI to manage stock, banks rely on it for fraud detection, and search firms like ours at SPi leverage AI tools to match candidates with roles faster than ever.

But South Africa is not Silicon Valley. Our tech landscape is shaped by unique challenges: high data costs, uneven internet access, and a workforce where digital literacy varies widely. While AI is growing, it is not a one size fits all solution. The human interface, those personal connections, emotional intelligence, and cultural understanding, still plays a vital role in how we do business and build relationships here.

AI is Strengths: Efficiency and Scale

Let us be honest, AI is highly effective at some tasks. It can process data at remarkable speed, spot patterns humans might miss, and handle repetitive tasks with ease. For example, in search firms, AI powered tools can scan thousands of CVs in seconds, selecting top candidates based on keywords and qualifications. This saves time for recruiters and gets job seekers in front of employers faster.

In South Africa, where unemployment sits at 33.5% (Stats SA, Q2 2025), AI could help bridge the gap between job seekers and opportunities. Platforms using AI can match candidates to roles across industries, even in rural areas where access to traditional job boards is limited. AI driven chatbots can also guide candidates through application processes, offering 24/7 support, something a human recruiter might struggle to provide.

Beyond search firms, AI is making inroads in sectors like healthcare, where it is used to predict disease outbreaks, or agriculture, where it helps farmers optimise crops. These advancements are promising, especially in a country where innovation can address systemic challenges like poverty and inequality.

The Human Interface: Why It Still Matters

But here is the reality, AI is not human, and in South Africa, that is significant. Our country thrives on relationships, ubuntu, and the personal touch. Whether it is a handshake at a business meeting in Sandton or a conversation over braai in Soweto, human connection drives trust and understanding. AI cannot replicate that. Not yet, anyway.

In executive search, AI can effectively shortlist candidates by analysing CVs and qualifications at scale, but it is the experienced executive recruiter who identifies the subtleties essential for leadership positions, such as a candidate’s passion, their alignment with organisational culture, or their capacity to drive strategic growth beyond their documented experience. South Africa’s diverse workforce, with 11 official languages and numerous cultural nuances, requires emotional intelligence and contextual insight that AI cannot yet fully replicate. A machine may fail to recognise why a candidate’s community engagement or resilience in challenging circumstances makes them the ideal fit for a C-suite role.

Then there is the issue of bias. AI systems are only as good as the data they are trained on, and if that data reflects historical inequalities (which South Africa has in abundance), AI can perpetuate those biases. A human recruiter, on the other hand, can challenge assumptions, advocate for diversity, and ensure fairness in ways algorithms cannot.

The South African Context: Opportunities and Challenges

South Africa’s tech landscape highlights a stark digital divide. Urban centres like Johannesburg and Cape Town are AI innovation hubs, driven by startups and corporates with access to infrastructure and skills. Rural areas, however, face barriers like limited internet, outdated hardware, and low digital literacy, stalling AI adoption. If AI supersedes human interfaces in sectors like customer service, finance, or healthcare, rural communities’ risk being marginalised. Jobs reliant on human interaction could vanish, and without access to AI tools or training, these populations may struggle to adapt. This could deepen inequality, as urban elites benefit from efficiency gains while rural workers face unemployment or exclusion from AI-driven services. Bridging this gap requires targeted interventions: expanding broadband access, subsidising tech infrastructure, and prioritising digital skills programs in rural areas. Without these, the divide will widen, leaving many unable to participate in an AI-driven economy.

For candidates seeking executive roles, AI could be transformative, but only if they have access to the technology and expertise to engage with it. A young professional in Pretoria might easily navigate an AI driven executive search platform, but a leader in a small town like Vryburg might struggle without reliable internet or digital literacy training. This is where human intervention, through tailored career coaching, strategic networking, or mentorship, remains critical for securing C-suite positions.

Businesses also face a balancing act. Adopting AI can reduce costs and boost efficiency, but over relying on it risks alienating customers who value personal service. In a country where “people buy from people” is a guiding principle, completely replacing human interface could backfire. Imagine a call centre where an AI chatbot cannot understand your isiZulu accent or a bank where an algorithm denies your loan without considering your unique circumstances. Frustrating, is it not?

The Future: A Collaborative Approach

So, will AI supersede human interface in South Africa? Our view: not likely, but it will reshape the landscape. The future lies in a collaborative model where AI and humans work together, each leveraging their strengths. AI can handle the heavy lifting, data processing, automation, and scale, while humans bring empathy, creativity, and cultural insight to the table.

At SPi, we are already embracing this. Our AI tools streamline executive sourcing, but our search team add the human touch, ensuring every executive placement is right for both the executive and the client. This balance is especially crucial in South Africa, where trust and relationships are the foundation of business.

For executives, this means upskilling is critical; learning to work alongside AI in leadership. For businesses, it is about investing in AI thoughtfully, ensuring it complements rather than replaces the human element.

Conclusion: Embracing AI with a Human Heart

AI is transforming South Africa, but it is not here to replace us, it is here to support us. In a country as vibrant and complex as ours, the human interface remains irreplaceable.

At SPi, we believe the future is about collaboration, not competition, between AI and humans. By blending advanced technology with the personal touch, we can create opportunities that uplift individuals and businesses alike. So, let us embrace AI, but let us do it with a human heart, because that is the South African way.

What are your thoughts on AI and the human interface? Are you seeing AI change the way you work or look for jobs? Drop a comment below or get in touch with us at SPi to share your story!

Seven Things we Learned about Leadership from Sport

2025-10-13T07:48:24Z

It’s difficult to get a grip on the actual value of the global sports industry, with estimates varying between US$2.65 trillion (2023) and US$487 billion (2022). Whichever way you measure it, one thing is clear: there’s a lot of money in sport.

Sport is about more than money, though. It is intrinsically woven into our lives. Whether you actively participate, or follow it from the comfort of your armchair, there is drama and ongoing narrative involvement: epic battles, heroic failures and glorious victories. The sporting spectacles we witness offer life lessons, examples of human endeavour, teamwork (or not), moral and ethical dilemmas.

Are there lessons from the world of sports that business leaders can learn?

We asked a group of sports-enthusiasts from across the AltoPartners alliance for the lessons they have learned from sports that they carry into their business lives.

1. Sport as character-builder

For Nicolás Mora Schrader, Managing Partner at Equation Partners / AltoPartners Chile, sport is more than a game. “I have been closely involved with rugby for many years, both as a player (in my youth) and as a passionate follower of the sport… Rugby became a school of values and discipline that has influenced the way I approach challenges, relationships, and leadership in my professional life.”

Thomas Heyn, Partner of Jack Russell Consulting / AltoPartners Germany, agrees. A basketball player during his university years, Dr Heyn says sport teaches fundamental values and character traits that are missing in modern society – including reliability and accepting the rules (no cheating!) even if they are not in your favour.

2. Sport as a place to learn

Heyn recalls a moment during a university football game when he lost his temper and pushed an opponent against a wall. “At the time I considered myself a nice guy, someone who stuck to the sportsmanship ethic. Forty-five years later, I still remember the lesson that taught me about self-control and the need for emotional self-regulation.”

Christo Badenhorst, Director Search Partners International / AltoPartners South Africa, who describes himself as a “crazy sports nut since primary school” and who plays a mean game of golf, says the opportunity to learn about other people is key. “The chance to engage with someone for five to six hours on a golf course is second to none – especially seeing how that person reacts when challenged or beaten!”

3. Sport and resilience

Tracy O’Such, Global Managing Partner, Media, Entertainment, and Sports: DSG Global / AltoPartners USA, who has placed senior level executives at all US major sports leagues (including NBA, NFL, NHL and USTA), says perseverance, and learning how to pick yourself up after a loss, strike her as major lessons from sport.

Says Mora: “You get knocked down many times, but the real measure is how quickly you stand up, refocus, and keep moving forward.”

4. Sport and planning

Keith Labbett, Managing Partner Osprey Executive Search / AltoPartners Eastern Canada, who has long-standing sport coaching experience in rugby, hockey and American football – alongside years of work in executive search and advisory capacities with National Sport Organizations (NSO) in Canada, professional franchises and leagues (MLB, NHL, CFL) – says he learned that the ability to execute a plan and learn from failure is more important than having a brilliant plan that can’t be implemented. “As heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis (who won a gold medal for Canada) said: ‘You can’t run from defeat. You study it, learn from it, and come back with a better plan’.”

5. Sport, humility and grace

O’Such recommends learning to accept defeat with grace. Jean Paul Hokke, Partner LTI / AltoPartners Netherlands, agrees, advising business leaders to accept failure, and to learn how to fail better. Hokke, who was the Dutch youth champion field hockey player at the age of 17 and played cricket at the highest Dutch level for over 10 years, says it’s equally important to celebrate successes – but humility is the mark of a true leader.

6. Sport and teamwork

Teamwork is often the focus of management thinking around how sport skills transfer to business performance.

Our AltoPartners experts have some insights:

● Labbett: “The best players are rarely the best leaders. The best leader is the person who can hold it together, the strategist and the one with the most commitment.”

● Heyn: Putting a team together is not necessarily about finding the people with the most talent. “Talented people often stop developing because success comes easily. They don’t learn the hard lessons. Dedication is much more important than talent.”

● Hokke: “In sport, if things go wrong, there’s an acceptance that everybody makes mistakes. There is not much blaming and shaming. In corporate life, when things go wrong, people look around, trying to find who to blame. Instead business leaders need to create the same kind of safe space, where people can be frank about weaknesses.”

7. Sport and business leadership as an act of service

Nicolás Mora Schrader has the final say: “If I had to choose just one thing I have learned from sport, it would be this: leadership is about service to the team. In rugby, the best players are not necessarily the stars, but those who create the conditions for others to shine. I used to play as a forward, in the second row, not a particularly ‘sexy’ position like scrum-half, fly-half, or even hooker. But it’s a role that, from the shadows, has a crucial impact on the team’s success: in the line-outs, in building second and third attacking phases, and in setting the platform for others to score. I wish more leaders embraced that idea… that true leadership means enabling your people to succeed, even if it means staying out of the spotlight yourself.”

Further reading

Ask Alto : What are workplace rituals and can hybrid / remote teams still benefit?

The AltoPartners Guide to Diversity and Inclusion : Safe Spaces – Could these be the missing ingredient in your DE&I programme?

Everything I know about business, I could have learnt from Star Trek!

Written by Renee Moodie

Impactful Questions to Ask During Your Interview Process

2025-10-09T09:09:18Z

By Richard Sterling, Partner at AltoPartners Australia.

This article was first posted on LinkedIn. To read the original post, click here.

This Is Your Moment

You’ve been here before, haven’t you?

Sitting across from the selection panel for a non-executive director role at a For Purpose organisation. You’ve nailed the interview.

Then comes your grand finale: “Do you have any questions for us?”

As an executive search professional sitting in on board interviews, I’ve seen this moment often wasted.

A throwaway question about next steps. A question that shows you haven’t done your homework. Or worse, no question at all.

Miss this chance to show insight, curiosity and strategic thinking and it leaves a mark. The panel’s ‘yes’ can quickly shift to a ‘maybe’ or worse.

The strongest candidates use this moment to lean in.

They ask sharp, thoughtful questions that reveal how they think, demonstrate genuine curiosity and leave the panel with a lasting impression.

There are many questions you could ask but these three stand out. They are not mine. They come from candidates who knew how to seize their moment.

Ask : “How true is the organisation to its mission?”

You are asking this to understand what drives decisions. Is purpose shaping strategy or is funding in the driver’s seat?

You want to know if the mission is lived or just listed on the website. You are listening for signs the culture is aligned or drifting.

Most importantly, it shows you are not here to nod along. You are thinking like a board member who is focused on impact, discipline and long-term alignment.

Ask : “In what ways is your strategy shaped by your theory of change?”

This gets to whether the organisation understands how it creates impact or is just hoping it does.

You want to know if strategy is grounded in evidence or held together by assumptions. You’re listening for a clear link between daily activity and long-term outcomes.

This question shows you are focused on rigour, clarity and the connection between purpose and execution and not just good intentions.

Ask : “How is impact being measured?”

Impact is the bottom line. You want measurable outcomes. You are looking for evidence that evaluation is built in and not added on.

This shows you are focused on what matters: knowing what is working, what is not and where to focus resources for the greatest return on mission.

And now, a question for you

You may not like the answers provided by the panel. So, what will you do?

10 Big Reasons To Go Smaller on Your Next Leadership Hire

2025-10-08T07:56:28Z

In a fractured economy, clients and hiring managers find value in working with boutique, partner-owned retained search firms.

Many members of the AltoPartners global partnership – recently voted among the top 40 executive search providers worldwide by Hunt Scanlon and consistently recognised as one of the top 10 international executive search and leadership advisory groups – have their roots in one of the Big Five global executive search giants. Others spent years honing their knowledge and skills as C-suite professionals before deciding to go solo.

For all of them, it was a leap of faith, but none have looked back.

“They love AltoPartners for the ability to promote their own brand while still having access to global networks and industry expertise, as well as the credibility that comes with being a member of the AESC – the global organisation that sets the standards in terms of ethics and quality for the industry”, says Julia Scheffer, AltoPartners Global Director and AESC Global Board Member.

Here’s why smaller has proved to be better for them and their clients.

1. As owner-operators, the buck starts and stops with us, says AltoPartners global chair Santiago Solis Arias, who left a lucrative partner role at Heidrick & Struggles to start one of Colombia’s best-known private executive search companies, Executive Connection SAS. “They may have a team of researchers working on the case, but you’ll never be fobbed off to an account executive who doesn’t have skin in the game. When it’s your own business and reputation on the line, you ensure that there are no slip-ups and that your clients and the candidates are satisfied,” says Solis.

2. We get that it’s a long-term partnership. Corinne Klajda, who heads up Nuvadis/ AltoPartners Poland, sums it up: “The beauty of an owner-led executive search firm is that we are personally invested in our client’s success. We have served the Polish market for over 30 years. We know our clients, their requirements, culture and organisations, enabling us to provide a personalised approach to every client and candidate. And to do it quickly, ethically and transparently.”

3. All the networks with none of the off-limits. AltoPartners provides the platform for its member firms to leverage each other’s shared knowledge, experience, networks and databases across all 59 offices in 35 countries. “This way, our clients can enjoy all the benefits of local insights and the best on-the-ground expertise, while also having full access to global talent through local search partners. This approach avoids being bogged down by global off-limits (an industry term referring to search restrictions often imposed by multinational clients to prevent international search companies from approaching their top talent in other territories), which can severely limit the pool of talented candidates,” says Ricardo Bäcker, founder and chair of Bäcker & Partners / AltoPartners Argentina, who values the strong collaboration within the partnership. “At AltoPartners, I feel that each of our partners has a genuine interest in my country, our office and myself, and this entrepreneurial mindset really makes all the difference to our clients,” he adds.

4. Boots-on-the-ground local knowledge. “We have real people in real offices in each region we operate in,” says Marco Arcaini, who heads up AltoPartners Germany’s Wiesbaden office. “We live where we work – a factor that puts AltoPartners among the top five worldwide in actual reach and in-situ presence. This gives clients the best of both worlds: deep local knowledge combined with international reach.”

5. Referrals and repeat business are our bread and butter. Albert Froom, the founding Chairman of AltoPartners and Partner of LTI Netherlands, has been serving the Benelux region for over three decades. “Our clients value our flexibility and creativity when it comes to identifying candidates and the extreme care with which we approach each assignment. It’s imperative that we get it right because ultimately, we measure our success by the re-buy factor of clients, and our referrals are largely based on word of mouth. If a candidate proves unsuitable or leaves before their tenure is up, it impacts our reputation and our bottom line.”

6. High-touch, high-impact. As a former Chief HR officer for Alexander Forbes and then Vodacom, Mpho Nkeli of Search Partners International (SPi) / AltoPartners South Africa, knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the desk: “Our customer-centricity and the way we keep the client connected to each step of the search process is a source of pride. Our goal is to wow the client and the candidate at every touchpoint. Quality and speed are key as we partner with clients and candidates. We know it works because of the high level of repeat business and the number of candidates that go on to become clients.”

7. Easy on the hiring teams – and on the candidates. Without the need to focus on bureaucracy, sales targets or overheads, boutique firms can afford to be more candidate-focused. “The way candidates are treated in this industry still shocks me,” says Dr Thomas Heyn of Jack Russell Consulting / AltoPartners Germany. “If a candidate has taken the time to consider your proposal and agreed to have their name put forward, then they deserve respect and consideration, even if they do not make it onto the shortlist. We never forget that we are an extension of our client’s brand.”

8. Sectoral and local depth. “We combine sector expertise with local knowledge to give our clients deep insight and access to proven leaders, while also looking beyond the obvious to rising stars and cross-sector talent who challenge established mindsets,” says Richard Fortune, Managing Partner at AltoPartners Australia and co-head of the AltoPartners Global Natural Resources practice group.

9. Ready adoption of AI. Smaller really is nimbler when it comes to ready adoption of AI tools to help clients make better, more informed decisions, says Carol Leonard, Chief Executive Officer and Head of Board Practice at The Inzito Partnership / AltoPartners UK in London. “We’re unconstrained by group-wide policies in terms of the AI tools we are able to use, but bound by ethical commitments to protect privacy and maintain confidentiality.”

10. We see you. “As entrepreneurs, we understand what it takes to run a business successfully. We are fascinated by the businesses our clients have built – the assets they’ve developed, the skills they need, and the people who will take them forward. We invest time in understanding the unique industry and cultural context of a search to ensure we find the perfect candidate every time,” says Sonal Agrawal of Accord India / AltoPartners India, who heads up one of the subcontinent’s leading executive search organisations.

You may also like:

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Written by Gail Strauss

The Director's Dilemma - October 2025 Edition

2025-10-01T07:26:50Z

Produced by Julie Garland-McLellan, Consultant at AltoPartners Australia and non-executive director and board consultant based in Sydney, Australia.

Contribution by Karla Dorsch, is the Founder and Managing Director of Evrima / AltoPartners UAE. She has over 25 years of experience in executive search, across a broad range of clients throughout EMEA including sovereign wealth funds, governmental agencies, banks, private equity firms, corporates, family conglomerates and start-ups. Karla has an MBA from NYU Stern School of business, a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, as well as a Masters degree in Psychology and Neuroscience and is a member of the International Woman’s Forum and has sat on various non-profit boards in the UK. She is Based in London.

The Director’s Dilemma - October 2025

This month our real-life board dilemma concerns a governance professional experiencing pressure from her employer to join a board that has many risks.

Cecilia is General Counsel of a company with multiple investments in other companies. As part of her role, she observes investee board meetings to ensure good governance.

One investee is very thinly capitalised and will need to raise additional capital. The founder still views the company as ‘his’ business, even though there are two other institutional investors alongside Cecilia’s company and multiple small shareholders. Cecilia has reported, to her boss, concerns that governance is poor.

The board is comprised of nominees from the institutional investors, an independent chair, an independent director who chairs the audit committee, and the founder. The founder owns 35% of the shares and the other two institutions own 12% each, Cecilia’s company has 9% and the founder’s brother has 10%. Cecilia’s company has responded to her concerns by agreeing with the founder that she should join the board, bringing the number of directors to six, and that the chair should be given a casting as well as deliberative vote.

The business has operations in Australia (where it started) and an offshore jurisdiction. It has almost 3,000 assets which are either rented or under ‘rent to own’ agreements. It has a lot of debt at around 12 times equity, and total assets are around $180 million. Its cash balances are low, and it is forecast to make a small loss this year. The relationship with the founder has not always been easy. Cecilia is not sure that she wants to take on the liabilities of directorship when, even with the support of the other institutional investors, she can be outvoted.

What can she do to manage the risks?

Karla’s Answer

Cecilia has found herself in a classic governance thriller: a fast-growing company with a headstrong founder, lots of debt, thin capital, and an uneasy boardroom mix. Now she’s being asked to step onto the stage as a full director. The prize? More influence. The risk? Personal liability in a business that looks like it’s running on fumes.

If she takes the seat, Cecilia inherits the duties of any director; acting with care, diligence, and loyalty; in both Australia and the offshore jurisdiction. With debt at 12 times equity, razor-thin cash, and a founder who thinks the company is “his,” the potential for things to go south is very real. D&O insurance and indemnities would help, but they don’t erase the personal stress of being outvoted.

So what’s the alternative? Cecilia could stay in the wings but strengthen her observer role: more access to board packs, audit papers, and committee meetings. She could push the institutional investors to act together, demanding stronger governance as a bloc. Conditions could be attached to any fresh capital: add another independent director, beef up the audit and risk committee, and commission regular governance reviews. A reworked shareholder agreement could also put guardrails around the founder’s decision-making.

If Cecilia does climb into the director’s chair, she should only do so with armour: watertight insurance, written indemnities, and documented governance reforms.

Either way, her task is the same: protect her company’s investment without becoming the casualty of someone else’s risky dream.

Julie’s Answer

Oh dear. Poor Cecilia!

There is little worse than having to choose between risking your day job and risking joining a board where you may not have the influence you deserve.

First, I would recommend that Cecilia meet with the Chair and ascertain if, as well as independence and good judgement, he or she has the toughness of character to withstand pressure from the founder.

She could then meet with the other investor-nominated board members. Again, she needs to assess the soundness of their characters and the steeliness of their resolve.

Cecilia already knows the CEO/founder so her next port of call is the remaining director, the audit chair. She should use this meeting to understand, not to judge. She needs to know what this director expects and contributes, and how they plan to improve governance.

Cecilia then needs to agree (in principle) a path forward that the large investors will support. Fortified with this outline of a way forward, she should finally meet with the founder and see how he feels about this plan.

If he is unwilling to back the plan, it is unlikely that the other investors will ‘top up’ their investment. The company has poor prospects if the existing investors have lost faith and the founder is approaching new investors. A ‘down round’ (where the share price is lower than that paid by past investors) is likely under this scenario. Cecilia’s company is likely to be very unhappy with the board and hence with Cecilia. It would be difficult to justify joining the board.
If he is willing to back the plan, there is a good chance that the current large investors will ‘top up’ and that share price will be maintained or dilution avoided. Cecilia’s company is likely to remain concerned but supportive and joining the board - especially if the plan results in a turnaround - could be a good career move.

Ultimately it comes down to Cecilia’s confidence in the founder’s ability to build a successf

Pre-onboarding: How the right executive search partner can accelerate time-to-impact

2025-09-23T08:16:19Z

When every month of executive underperformance translates into millions in lost opportunities, the first 90 days are too costly to waste. Executive search partners can provide targeted, high-touch interventions that reduce onboarding risks and accelerate time to impact.

Onboarding programmes can take anywhere from a few weeks to up to 12 months, but all are designed with one purpose: to integrate new employees into an unfamiliar environment. But not every organisation can afford to spend months getting expensive new hires up to speed. This is where your executive search partner can help, says Marco Arcaini of AltoPartners Germany. By preparing candidates before day one — bridging culture gaps, decoding stakeholder dynamics, and aligning expectations — search partners can accelerate time-to-impact and protect the return on your most critical investment: leadership.

Turning risk into ROI

“Hiring a senior executive is a big commitment for any client. The best search process can find you a suitable candidate, but it’s what happens in those first 90 days that can set them up for success or failure. It makes sense to invest in a pre-onboarding programme to align expectations and bridge any culture gaps,” explains Arcaini, who, together with executive coach and author Christian Repplinger, developed a comprehensive pre-onboarding service 14 years ago following a surprise upset when a new appointment was asked to resign due to a clash with a board member.

They didn’t fail because of a lack of skills or capacity, but because they missed one unspoken rule. That single blind spot, says Arcaini, caused months of disruption. A pre-briefing around role clarity and stakeholder mapping would have eliminated the problem.

“I realised then that what was needed was a pre-onboarding programme to help successful candidates navigate the new political landscape. This is more than ensuring a broad culture-fit, which we always do before putting a candidate forward for consideration. Pre-onboarding is about helping candidates understand the nuances of the environment they will be entering. By giving them the inside track on who they’ll be working for and what the expectations are, candidates can adjust their approach and leadership style accordingly to ensure they get off on a good footing and give the client’s onboarding programme a chance to work its magic,” he explains.

A chance to transfer critical insights

As Arcaini points out, executive search partners spend hours with their clients understanding their business and their specific needs. In the process, they gain unique insights into the dynamics on both sides: “We get to know the key players, and we make it our business to understand the context. Why did the incumbent leave? Why has the vacancy arisen? What unique challenges can the candidate expect to encounter? Where are the opportunities? We also know the candidate – what motivates them, their leadership style, and areas for personal growth and development.”

“In addition to this deep insider knowledge, we have the trust of both parties, which means we are able to transfer critical insights that will accelerate the candidate’s integration into the company and shorten the ramp-up period,” adds Arcaini.

Once the candidate starts work, the first formal check-in takes place eight weeks later, by which time Arcaini will have received feedback from both the client and the candidate. As the mediator in the middle, he is well-positioned to broach sensitive matters that are raised on both sides.

Culture: A minefield for the uninitiated

So, what does pre-onboarding look like?

Arcaini explains: “It’s very particular to the client and the candidate, and typically, it begins in earnest a month before the start date. We focus on three key areas: culture decode, expectation alignment and early integration coaching.”

“We begin with a culture debrief. Every organisation has its own way of doing things – its customs and unwritten rules, and it can be a minefield for the uninitiated. For international candidates in particular, some elements of German work culture can be disconcerting, such as the famously direct approach of giving clear and unambiguous feedback. Even junior colleagues will tell you plainly if they disagree with a decision or the way a task or process is being handled. For senior appointees, this can take some getting used to. For these candidates, a few tips about working for a German boss or managing German employees can make all the difference in forming the interpersonal relationships that can make or break a career. We also ensure that we align expectations and provide a debrief on what to expect during the first 90 days.”

“My job is to ensure complete alignment in terms of roles and expectations. A pre-onboarding programme reduces risk on both sides and ensures confident, committed hires ready to deliver from day one. I like to think of it as providing a turbo-boost for our clients’ onboarding programme. It’s a win-win all round.”

A strategic risk management tool

Has anyone ever bailed after hearing a bit more about their prospective new job?

Arcaini laughs. “No one to date. This is mainly because the actual search process itself is very thorough in terms of what the candidate will be required to do and where the challenges and opportunities lie within the role. Pre-onboarding is more personal and more granular. Our feedback from candidates indicates that they appreciate the time we take to prepare them for their new roles in a new environment. For clients, the value of pre-onboarding is even more profound, as it reduces the time to impact.”

Ultimately, says Arcaini, pre-onboarding is not a nice-to-have: “It’s a strategic risk-management tool that pays dividends in performance, retention, and cultural alignment. Clients who extend their partnership beyond placement gain a competitive edge: executives who arrive already briefed, aligned, and prepared to deliver. The question for CEOs and hiring managers is simple: if your onboarding programme doesn’t begin before day one, are you really giving your leaders—and your business—the best chance to succeed?”

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International Equal Pay Day 2025: Persisting Gaps & What Needs to Change

2025-09-18T06:05:04Z

Observed annually on 18 September, International Equal Pay Day is a United Nations-recognised observance representing the longstanding efforts towards the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value.

The State of the Gender Pay Gap in 2025

Several recent reports show the gender pay gap remains significant, with only slow progress.

• Globally, women earn about 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, meaning a wage gap of roughly 23%.

• When measured without adjusting for job type, experience etc. (“uncontrolled” gap), the disparity is large: overall pay for women is about 83% of that of men.

• After controlling for factors such as role, qualifications, and location, the gap shrinks, but it does not disappear. Even in similar roles, women are still underpaid on average.

• In the United States, the median pay ratio for all workers is about 85%: women earn ~85 cents for every dollar men earn. Among younger workers (ages 25-34), the gap is smaller: women earn about 95 cents for every dollar earned by men of the same age group.

• Progress is slow: according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2025, it would take more than a century (estimated around 123 years) to close gaps in economic participation and opportunity at the current rate of change.

Key Contributing Factors & Structural Barriers

Some of the persistent drivers of inequality include:

• Occupational segregation: Women are overrepresented in lower-paid sectors (care work, informal economy) and underrepresented in higher-paying technical, leadership, or STEM roles.

• Career interruptions and caregiving responsibilities, particularly associated with motherhood, affect women’s earnings trajectory over time.

• Limited pay transparency and opaque recruiting/hiring/promotion practices, which make it harder to detect and correct unequal pay.

• Unconscious bias and discriminatory practices in evaluation, promotion, and compensation even when formal equality policies exist.

AltoPartners’ Insights & Role

AltoPartners has in its 2025 research underlined some valuable points:

• In “Accelerating Gender Parity: Recommendations for Executive Search and Hiring” (Jan 2025), AltoPartners highlighted that globally, women earn about 84% of what men earn on average. This aligns closely with other global metrics, showing the gap is narrowing, but not fast enough.

• That report emphasizes the importance of inclusive hiring, measurable goals for diversity, diversifying candidate pools, adopting gender-neutral job descriptions, and rethinking traditional leadership criteria.

• From earlier reporting (“Gender equality and women’s participation in the workforce – still a work in progress”), AltoPartners noted that even where female participation is relatively high, representation at senior levels remains low, and occupational segregation (women concentrated in lower-paid roles) persists.

What Must Change: Policy & Practice

To make meaningful progress toward pay equity, the following must happen:

1. Pay audits and transparency: Organisations should regularly audit pay, publish results (where possible), and provide clear paths for correcting disparities.

2. Redefining job value: Recognise work of “equal value” even when it’s in different sectors; ensure that roles traditionally dominated by women are not undervalued.

3. Support for caregiving: Flexible work, parental leave, childcare support—all reduce the earnings penalty associated with caregiving.

4. Leadership & pipeline interventions: Sponsorship, mentorship, inclusive leadership criteria, and targeted development for women in the middle levels can help reduce the drop-off toward senior roles.

5. Legislation & public policy: Enabling laws for equal pay, protections around discrimination, requirements for disclosure, and incentives for companies to improve.

6. Cultural change and bias reduction: Training, inclusive culture, challenging norms that privilege certain career paths or penalize breaks in employment.

International Equal Pay Day 2025 reminds us that despite progress, pay equity remains a distant goal. With women still earning between 77-84% of men’s pay on average, and full parity projected to take over a century at current rates, more urgent, systemic action is needed.

AltoPartners’ voices from 2025 show that anywhere from recruitment to leadership selection, from job design to policy frameworks, there are levers that organisations, and advisors like AltoPartners, can pull to help close the gap. The challenge moving forward is not just measurement, but commitment: sustained, visible, and measurable change across sectors and regions.

Forces Shaping the MENA Region

2025-09-11T15:09:26Z

This post was originally published by Karla Dorsch, Founder and Managing Partner Evrima / AltoPartners Abu Dhabi, on LinkedIn. To view the original post, click here.

Across the MENA region, three forces are reshaping how we lead people and organisations: tightening labour markets, rising expectations, and fast-moving HR regulations. These aren’t challenges for any one company but realities for all.

Let’s start with regulation. In the UAE, Emiratisation now reaches even smaller employers, with quotas applying to firms of just twenty staff in some sectors. In Saudi Arabia, Saudization rules continue to tighten, especially in tourism and healthcare. Oman has introduced shorter working weeks and expanded leave entitlements. Qatar enforces a statutory minimum wage with mandatory allowances. Egypt has raised its private-sector minimum wage to seven thousand pounds this year. The message is that the regulatory floor across MENA is rising, and rising fast.

Next, compensation. Inflation, currency shifts, and fierce competition for scarce skills are pushing wages upward. But broad salary increases are not sustainable. Many organisations are finding a smarter balance: linking pay reviews to inflation data, separating base salary from temporary market premiums, and investing in benefits that matter most to employees, healthcare, education, mobility support, and future savings.

At the same time, localisation is transforming the talent equation. Compliance with quotas in the UAE and Saudi Arabia is mandatory. The companies getting ahead are those with role-by-role localisation roadmaps, graduate intakes, and internal academies that build national talent pipelines. Leaving localisation to the last minute only drives up costs and is disruptive.

Recruitment and retention are also shifting. On the recruitment side, multi-track sourcing, from university partnerships, to returning expats, to contract-to-permanent models, helps reduce both the time to hire and wage inflation. On the retention side, many organisations are learning that small moves can be as powerful as big pay rises: lateral career opportunities, project-based bonuses, and regular stay interviews with employees at risk of leaving.

And then there is compliance. Across the region, regulators are becoming more active and more digital. To stay ahead, organisations are embedding compliance into daily operations.

So what does this mean? Three things.

First, sharing intelligence on regulations, compensation trends, and localisation practices rather than reinvent the wheel.
Second, investing in national talent, because today’s graduates are tomorrow’s shared workforce.
And third, set a higher bar for both compliance and employee experience, so that the region is not just competitive, but also a place where talent wants to stay and grow.

The pressures of labour shortages, rising pay, and shifting rules will not ease soon but addressing them will ensure continued success.

How and Why Boards Are Redefining Leadership

2025-09-11T09:18:12Z

By Richard Sterling, Partner at AltoPartners Australia.

This article was first posted on LinkedIn. To read the original post, click here.

Last week, I joined a panel hosted by the Australian Institute of For Purpose Leaders to tackle a question I’m hearing with increasing urgency:

“What are the top three qualities Boards are seeking in For-Purpose leaders to future-proof organisational growth and sustainability?”

The discussion confirmed what I’m seeing across my For-Purpose executive search practice: Boards are raising the bar. Safe, status-quo leadership is over.

With volatile funding, relentless scrutiny, digital disruption and rising complexity reshaping the operating environment, Boards want leaders who can deliver impact and navigate uncertainty with confidence.

Drawing on my work with Boards and insights from global peers, here are the three qualities shaping the next generation of For Purpose leaders.

1. Commercial Acumen Meets Purpose

Boards want leaders who balance mission with money and who treat revenue and impact as inseparable.

Traditional funding models are no longer enough. Leaders need diversified revenue streams, innovative business models and the smart use of digital to accelerate growth and impact.

Boards are not hiring caretakers. They are hiring builders, leaders who create value not just protect it while staying anchored to the mission.

2. Moving Beyond Impact

Results matter and so does how you communicate them.

Funders expect measurable outcomes. Donors connect with human stories. Communities seek proof that lives are improving. Volunteers want to feel inspired.

It isn’t just the data OR just the narrative, it’s both. Numbers validate. Stories motivate.

Boards are looking for leaders who can craft powerful stories that help shape policy, mobilise networks and secure long-term funding.

3. The Trust Dividend

Trust underpins everything: funding, partnerships, culture and reputation. Without it, nothing holds.

Boards are prioritising leaders who earn trust through transparent, values-driven leadership. Those who lead with clarity, consistency and genuine conviction attract top talent, make better decisions and strengthen governance.

Trust compounds like capital. It is a force multiplier that accelerates growth, amplifies influence and drives sustainable impact.

The New Baseline

For Boards, the baseline has shifted. They now seek leaders with commercial acumen, storytelling grounded in impact and the credibility to earn trust.

These qualities determine who drives organisations forward and who gets left behind.

Ask Alto: Mental health for business leaders: Is ‘wellth’ the new wealth?

2025-09-08T12:31:00Z

“Executives are telling me that they are struggling mentally and emotionally to release accumulated stress, and that it often ends up affecting their physical health.” – Corinne Klajda, Managing Partner, Accord Polska / AltoPartners Poland.

Stress is rising among C-suite executives at large companies, with 82% reporting higher stress levels than in 2024.

Sentry Insurance’s 2025 C-Suite Stress Index for Large Businesses, which surveyed 100 executives from large enterprise companies, found that the heightened stress stemmed from a range of external pressures: supply chain and logistics challenges, economic uncertainty, inflation and labour shortages. Also on the risk radar were cyberattacks and severe weather events.

An April 2025 study by consulting firm Anthrome Insights found that almost three-quarters of C-suite and executive management feel overwhelmed. The 1,000-person study found high workloads were the issue: “66% of… self-reported reasons for feeling overwhelmed related purely to tasks and time.”

Then there’s pressure to perform. Klajda says executive stress can be exacerbated by people’s own ambitions or their need to achieve regardless of the environment in which they operate.

All of this impacts leadership effectiveness and churn in executive ranks. Dr Reena Patel, Global Managing Partner and Practice Leader, Consulting DSG Global / AltoPartners USA, says she is seeing high turnover in leadership-level positions across the board.

But when stress is effectively managed, stronger leadership emerges. Leaders who prioritise their well-being and openly address their struggles can become positive role models, fostering resilience and mental health within their teams.

One way to manage stress is to embrace the concept of ‘wellth’.

What is wellth?

A 2016 book entitled Wellth: How I Learned to Build a Life, Not a Resume by Jason Wachob suggested that people needed a new life currency and introduced the idea of making deposits into wellth accounts, creating a sustainable approach to living.

Cultivating physical and emotional health, finding richness in daily life, and ensuring work is purposeful are all ways to make deposits into one’s well-being account. The key is to focus on attainable goals: small, daily actions that contribute to long-term personal growth.

How wellth might work for C-suite executives

Here’s how thinking about wellth rather than wealth might help stressed and overwhelmed executives:

● Proactive well-being: Instead of leaders reacting to burnout by soldiering on regardless, a wellth approach suggests consciously being aware of the warning signs that burnout is a possibility: early signs of fatigue, dips in focus, and sleep erosion.

● Daily choices: Establishing disciplined morning and evening routines, incorporating micro-recovery breaks throughout the day, engaging in regular exercise, and maintaining a healthy diet are all effective ways to manage stress and build resilience.

● Connection: Leaders can work on building stronger team relationships and creating safe spaces for honest conversations. This includes being vulnerable about personal struggles, asking for help, and relating to team members’ challenges, which in turn fosters trust, authenticity, and a sense of belonging.

● Delegation and team empowerment: Leadership development could focus on training leaders to build teams they can rely on, thereby alleviating their own stress and empowering their team members. In this framework, well-being is “built in, not bolted on”.

● Purposeful work: In leadership development, this means guiding leaders to find deeper meaning in their work and helping their teams connect to that purpose. This means taking a clear view on what’s not worth doing and who doesn’t need to be involved to reduce the intensification of workloads.

In essence, wellth offers leaders a framework to survive the increasing pressures of the C-suite and to thrive by integrating health, happiness, and purpose into their leadership style and organisational culture.

The wellth cascade for employees

When leaders openly prioritise their own well-being and share their vulnerabilities, they act as role models for their teams, a Rutgers University Future of Work article says. Demonstrating that self-care is not a luxury but a necessity for sustained performance sets a precedent for organisational culture and encourages employees to set boundaries and manage their stress.

As part of this process, it’s essential for leaders to create a safe environment where employees can be candid about their struggles and feel supported. “The reality is that if your employees are struggling with work-life balance or issues with burnout and stress, it’s likely that you can provide guidance to help,” Rutgers says.

Practical tips

Klajda has some specific suggestions:

● The workday: Implement a consistent morning routine; walk, stretch, write thoughts down, keep a gratitude journal. This provides space to prepare for the day. During the day, stay hydrated and eat healthy snacks.

● Lifestyle: Take daily exercise (try walking for an hour). Prioritise quality sleep by maintaining a consistent wake-up and sleep schedule. Consider incorporating food supplements, saunas, ice baths, and massages into your healthy lifestyle. And create boundaries between work and home, starting with a ritual to transition from work to personal mode, which could be as simple as developing a strategy for when and how devices will be used after work hours.

● Long-term: Engage in longevity programmes to check and measure health, then implement healthy lifestyle improvements.

● Get help: Consider psychotherapy or working with a life coach as a form of self-care, rather than an admission of weakness. Create or join networks and support groups to combat isolation.

● Meetings: Practice centring, breathing and stretching before meetings; take regular stretching breaks. Consider walking or stand-up meetings.

● When things get bad, consider instituting a “rage room” to release stress.

● For staff: Allow pets at work to soothe anxiety. “Venting” sessions in a safe space could be a way for teams to share what’s bothering them. Or consider incorporating laughing yoga sessions at the office to help combat stress.

How can executive search / leadership advisory consultants help leaders?

Honest conversations within a safe, non-judgemental set up are key. Klajda believes a consultant’s role is “to uplift others and to enable others to see what they might not be seeing at the moment – hope.”

Case study: How one executive does it

Klajda: One CEO I know joined the 5 a.m. club, waking up every day at the same time and using the first two hours for himself. Walking, stretching, writing his thoughts down, and gratitude journaling – all this before breakfast.

By the time he arrived at the office, he had a clear vision of the day for himself and his business. Creating a mindset for the day set him up to be a cheerleader even when times got tough.

When I asked him how he overcame a failed merger, he said he stuck to his daily routine and sought help from a group of wise business friends, asking how they would approach different topics. Today, his business is doing well. It has remained small, but his team is healthy, thriving, and more engaged than ever. They all feel they have been through the wars together and have bonded through hard times. He and his team have learned to focus on what they can control and let go of what they can’t control.

FURTHER READING

Ask Alto: What is “stagility” and why do leaders need to know?

The AltoPartners Guide to Diversity and Inclusion : Safe Spaces – Could these be the missing ingredient in your DE&I programme?

Ask Alto : Burnout - what causes it and how to deal with it

Ask Alto : How leadership can tackle burnout

Ask Alto : The eight habits of high performers that reduce the risk of burnout

Written by Renee Moodie

What's Next for the Search Business as we Head into 2026?

2025-09-08T09:13:13Z

This post was originally published by Karla Dorsch, Founder and Managing Partner Evrima / AltoPartners Abu Dhabi, on LinkedIn. To view the original post, click here.

Let’s start in Saudi Arabia.

Think of the market like a music festival. The headliners have played, the lights are still dazzling, but the crowd knows the encore won’t last forever. Demand is still strong, make no mistake, but the frenzy is cooling. Leaders finally see the stage clearly: hiring is tough, talent is scarce, but the hype of record highs is giving way to something even more useful, focus.

Now, shift your attention to the UAE.

This isn’t a music festival. This is Formula 1. The track is crowded with global talent, engines are roaring, and the real disruption is in the pit lane: AI. It’s not just tinkering with the car, it’s redesigning the whole race. Legal departments? Downsized. Customer service? Reinvented. Sales teams? Rewired. This isn’t the future. It’s now. By 2026, the speed only goes up.

But here’s the plot twist: when machines take over tasks, they don’t end the story, they write a new chapter. And our job in search? Find the people who can race alongside the machines, not get lapped by them. The innovators. The builders. The people who thrive on change.

And let’s talk about demand. It’s not vanishing, it’s exploding. Real estate is booming. Construction is roaring. Manufacturing is back. Tourism is scaling like never before. These industries don’t just need workers; they need visionaries, navigators, dreamers who can build the next skyline, the next factory, the next destination.

And then there’s localisation. Governments are cranking up the pressure, but the smartest companies? They’re turning that pressure into jet fuel. National talent isn’t just a compliance box. It’s a loyalty engine. It’s reputation. It’s alignment with the very future of economies. That’s not a burden, it’s a competitive edge.

So, what’s the shape of 2026?

• Realism in Saudi Arabia: the market sobering up and getting smarter.

• Recalibration in the UAE: AI rewriting the DNA of entire functions.

• Resilience in industries that refuse to slow down.

• Reinvention through localisation: where national talent becomes the X-factor.

And here’s the punchline: when markets shift, when leaders panic, when talent pools change overnight, that’s when we’re most valuable. We’re not just filling jobs. We’re shaping the future of work in one of the most dynamic regions on earth.

The Director's Dilemma - September 2025 Edition

2025-09-01T08:08:12Z

Produced by Julie Garland-McLellan, Consultant at AltoPartners Australia and non-executive director and board consultant based in Sydney, Australia.

Contribution by Jaco Kriek, is Managing Director Search Partners International (SPi) / AltoPartners South Africa and has more than 25 years financial, mining and executive experience. At the IDC, he was Executive Vice President - Projects and he led the IDC Finance team in the Mozal Aluminium Smelter in Mozambique. Jaco worked at Standard Bank as Head - Mining & Metals Finance, Africa and he was the Standard Bank representative on the Phembani Board. He was CEO and Executive Director of the Pebble Bed Modular Nuclear Reactor Company (PBMR) for 6 years and is still a 45% shareholder in Ennex Developments (Pty) Ltd, a Project Development Company, focusing on power, energy and water.

The Director’s Dilemma - September 2025

This month our real-life board dilemma concerns how to manage a director who has strong backing from the shareholder but who has mistaken the role as that of a specialist consultant.

Brett chairs a government-owned board and will reach the end of his tenure next year. Six months ago, the Minister appointed a new director to Brett’s board. The new director is an expert in environmental offsets and carbon measurement and trading. He is brilliant in his field and Brett’s company aspires to best practice in using (and monitoring) credits. The trouble is that he just seems to either find fault with the management team or to sit back and wait for ‘his’ topic to come up rather than adding value or contributing to any other topic.

Brett has tried to suggest that the director take some general governance education and also become more involved in discussions of staffing, budgeting, and other business activities, but the director rebuffs all efforts saying that he “wants to stick to what he is good at”.

Worse, the Minister suggested at Brett’s last meeting with her, that she was considering making the new director ‘Deputy Chair’ because she saw him at a recent conference and was impressed by his expertise. Brett tried to voice his misgivings but was brushed aside. He knows there is an expectation that the Deputy Chair would step up to become Chair after he leaves and knows that this would be a disaster.

What can be done about this?

Jaco’s Response

As Chair of a State-Owned Enterprise, Brett faces a typical, but difficult governance challenge. Technical expertise is valuable and important at board level, but directors must always act as custodians of all aspects and not just their chosen field of expertise. A board’s strength lies in collective accountability, every director shares the joint responsibility for e.g. Strategy, Risk Management, Financial oversight and Company culture.

The first step is to align expectations and responsibilities of all directors. Brett should appoint an independent Consultant to perform a board effectiveness and governance evaluation. Brett should also consider including the Minister (maybe for her educational purposes only), to get her views on board effectiveness and governance, as well as the consequences of her actions in respect of corporate governance. The full board should deliberate the report, preferably facilitated by the Consultant. Brett should utilise the input from all board members and the Minister, to strengthen and agree the need for collective versus narrowly defined board responsibilities.

With the fresh understanding of joint board responsibilities, Brett can find constructive ways to engage the new director on a broader basis e.g. to serve on the Audit, Finance & Risk sub-committee. His environmental offsets, carbon measurement and trading expertise can be leveraged, ensuring that his skills add value which could also change his attitude and reduce his dominance of Executive management in board meetings.

Finally, succession planning requires careful diplomacy. Brett should brief the Minister at the appropriate time, with evidence from the board effectiveness and governance evaluation, offering a competency-based succession framework. Brett can demonstrate that good govern

Julie’s Response

he best director is not the same as the most knowledgeable expert!

Getting the Minister to recognise this when she clearly respects the expertise is going to be difficult. Brett should focus on his board, which is - or should be - more within his scope of influence. Hopefully his board has an established habit of annual performance reviews; if not, his job will be even harder.

First, Brett needs to brief an expert mentor and advisor to help him and the whole board through the process. This must be someone with tact as well as expertise. There is a process to follow that will ensure the board is united, rather than divided.

Next, Brett should engage with each of the other directors to check their views of the board and their new expert colleague. It could be that he and the management team have a different view of the situation from that of the other directors.

Once Brett has a clear understanding of the views of the board, he should work with the advisor to develop a carefully constructed review that will provide evidence of the issues and ideas for solutions. This is not an ‘off the shelf’ review. Brett needs unambiguous evidence to support the course of action that emerges from the review. That probably requires a quantitative as well as qualitative approach. The results can be shared with the Minister.

Brett should share the results with the individual directors and agree a development plan for each one. It is important that the result of performance review should be performance improvement, not criticism of one director. These plans should then be implemented and appropriately resourced. Brett should use a feedforward approach where each director knows what the board and each other director are trying to change, looks for those changes, and supports as the desired change is implemented. Again, the Minister can receive reports of progress in the usual briefings. Brett can frame these in the context of getting the new director ready to step confidently into a deputy or, eventually, chair role.

Board and Executive Remuneration 2025 Update

2025-08-26T09:40:00Z

AltoPartners Australia has released our 2025 Board and Executive Remuneration Reports for ASX-listed Mining, Energy, and Resources companies.

The past year has again tested the resilience of the sector, shaped by volatile commodity prices, shifting fiscal regimes, and selective deal activity. Battery metals are stabilising, gold remains strong, and energy markets are navigating OPEC+ policy and the renewables transition. Against this backdrop, boards are recalibrating strategies, managing risk, and rethinking remuneration in an environment demanding both prudence and agility.

Download the reports to benchmark remuneration and explore the trends reshaping leadership in mining, energy, and resources.

To download the full Mining Executive Remuneration Report 2025 click here or the Energy Executive Remuneration Report 2025, click here