Differing views on director term and age limits

Instituting term or age limits for directors is a way to ensure you have the right board members to help your family business grow and thrive in today’s competitive marketplace. Requiring directors to step down once they have served a predetermined number of terms or reached a certain age takes emotions out of the equation because the board members know in advance when they’ll need to step down.

A recent study reported that in public companies, age limits are more prevalent than term limits. Deloitte’s 2016 Board Practices Report, which queried 189 public company members of the Society for Corporate Governance, found that while 81% of the respondents from large-cap companies and 74% of those from mid-cap companies imposed age limits on their directors, only 5% and 6%, respectively, used term limits.

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About the Author(s)

Mitzi Perdue

Mitzi Perdue (Mrs. Frank Perdue) is a public speaker and author of How to Make Your Family Business Last. She’s also a war correspondent in Ukraine with more than 50 articles published on Russia’s war on Ukraine.


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