E21 | Dylys Bertelsen OAM GAICD: What Boards Are Really Looking For

Thank you.

The belief that people need board experience to join a board stops very many highly capable professionals from even exploring board opportunities.

Yet if every board only appointed experienced directors, how would anyone ever secure their first appointment? So in your view, what matters when it comes to serving on a board?

I think first and foremost is really that motivation.

Why is it that you want to be supporting, serving, and why would you be committed to this particular organisation? That's got to be the first thing.

So when we're recruiting, we're looking for people that are absolutely committed to that particular cause.

There's a good reason for it.

Then we're looking for the skill sets, the technical skills that but the ability to be able to work at that strategic level as well.

So not to get too operational around the table.

But I think it's also that critical thinking, analytical thinking, It's the ability to collaborate well with the rest of the team on the board because we know that through good conversations, good, robust, courageous conversations, and that respectful, that empathetic way of working with your team produces really, really good results.

Thank you.

When a board comes to you needing a new director...

How does what they're actually asking for, what they say they're asking for, actually differ? And how much can you help them really find what they might be missing when it comes to their board?

Yes, sometimes that does happen, but more often than not, they're pretty clear.

I think that's one of the changes now, that they're really looking for the gaps to be able to achieve or execute on the strategic plan.

So more often than not, they're really clear.

But by the time, as a recruiter, you've gone through that in-depth briefing, introduction to the organisation process, We're on the same page.

We've worked it out.

And it is, I guess, as we talked about that personal approach, it is very much about advising and consulting and being courageous to have an open and honest conversation with them.

Have they thought about this? Anyway, it's a good in-depth conversation.

You've written specifically about women aspiring to board roles and, of course, have been a member of Women on Boards for a very long time.

What's the gap you see most often between how skilled and experienced women present themselves and how boards are evaluating candidates?

The women that we see, not all, but the women that we see are perhaps not as confident in some respects as or that ability to identify those transferable skills that they have, as opposed to the gentleman who won't be too worried if they're missing some of the brief or some of the criteria that we need to fill.

So I think possibly that that's what it is.

But we do know that the more we have women on boards, And not just women, that overall approach to diversity, the better the boards will be.