It’s Board recruitment season. What should you be looking for?
AGM season is approaching, and board recruitment activity is highest in the months prior. If your organisation is planning to bring on new directors this quarter, now is the time to think about who you actually need beyond who is advertising and currently available.
Start with the strategy, not the seat
Most board recruitment starts with a vacancy. That's a reasonable trigger, but the brief should come from the organisation's strategy over the next three to five years, and the skills and experience that strategy demands.
If growth depends on a new market, service line, or regulatory environment, does the board already have someone with experience in that space? That's the gap the new member should fill.
It's worth looking at where current directors came from. Boards that recruit from familiar networks tend to keep recruiting from familiar networks. Widening the brief is usually more effective than widening the search.
What the data says
The 2026 Board Diversity Index, from Watermark Search International with the AICD and Deloitte, gives a useful national picture. Now in its twelfth year, it tracks diversity across ASX 300 boards annually. This year's findings show a consistent pattern: real progress on gender, very little progress elsewhere.
Women now hold 38% of ASX 300 board seats, up from 20% a decade ago. Only four boards remain all-male, down from 46 in 2016. The progress has come from sustained, deliberate effort over more than a decade.
Cultural diversity has moved the other way. Directors from non-Anglo-Celtic backgrounds make up 6.5% of ASX 300 seats, down from 8.1% the year before and lower than any year since the Index began tracking the figure. Indigenous representation fell from seven board seats in 2025 to five in 2026. No director on an ASX 300 board has declared a disability, and five identify as LGBTQ+ across the entire index.
The attention that moved gender representation hasn't yet reached cultural background, disability or lived experience. The same principle applies well beyond the ASX: a recruitment process that draws on the same networks and the same criteria will keep producing the same boards.
Subject matter experts bring something boards often miss
One effective way to close a known capability gap is to look past generalist director experience and bring in deep expertise in a specific domain the board needs.
Rod Maule was appointed as an independent advisor to the Ambulance Victoria board in June 2025, serving on their People & Culture Committee. The appointment was built on subject matter depth, giving the board direct, ongoing access to expertise that would otherwise need to be sourced externally each time it was needed.
Rachael Kelly served on the board of Wayss from October 2021 to October 2025, advising on organisational strategy, enterprise risk, and people and culture. Across a four-year term, that expertise becomes part of how the board thinks about risk and strategy day to day.
A subject matter expert can ask sharper questions in their area, spot risks earlier, and translate technical detail for the rest of the table. That's increasingly what governance pressure is asking boards for.
HR and safety leaders are well placed for board roles
There's a clear opportunity for senior HR, People & Culture and WHS professionals, and for boards willing to consider them seriously as governance candidates.
Boards face growing pressure to show they understand workforce risk alongside financial and operational risk. Psychosocial safety, capability and culture are now standing governance items, not just topics raised after an incident.
Senior HR and Safety leaders bring direct experience managing this kind of risk from inside an executive team. Rod's role on Ambulance Victoria's People & Culture Committee and Rachael's strategy and risk role at wayss both draw on exactly this background. Boards willing to consider candidates with this profile, rather than requiring prior NED experience, will find a larger and more relevant pool to choose from.
Building the right mix
This isn't an argument for one type of director over another. A board needs people who hold the strategic and financial conversation, and people who bring deep operational or sector expertise.
The practical task for a nomination committee is to look at the board's current skills matrix, identify the gaps against the strategy ahead, and write a brief that reflects those gaps. Sometimes that's a subject matter expert. Sometimes it's someone from a different sector or career background entirely.
AGM season sets a natural deadline for this work. Remember to ensure the strategy sets the brief.