Board meetings
The average number of reported board meetings held was 13, barely changed from 2022’s 13.1. Overall, the trend has been rising, from 11.4 in 2019 and 11.5 in both 2020 and 2021.
The number of meetings ranged from six (AutoStore, Demant, and LE Lundbergforetagen) to 44 (Jyske Bank).
Our perspective: Importance of board culture
While it is easy to see where a board’s expertise lies, its culture is much less easy to discern. Having a range of functional and industry competencies around the boardroom table is no guarantee of a truly effective board.
A board’s culture — how the dynamics work inside the boardroom — is increasingly seen as an important element of a high-functioning board. It affects the nature of debate, the quality of engagement and trust among directors, and how the board makes decisions.
In the Nordics, board evaluations tend to be done internally: only 18% of our sample disclosed they had an external advisor, compared with 27% of companies in the rest of Europe. Boards would benefit from deeper evaluations that consider more nuanced aspects of composition, such as individual styles and collective culture. For instance, do the individual skills and styles represented on the board allow them to challenge management appropriately? Does the chair have the most effective leadership style to lead this particular board?
Rethinking and refreshing the board evaluation is important, especially when an organisation has been through a recent M&A, or as new directors join the board and potentially shift the overall dynamics.
External commitments
Non-executives continue to hold an average of one external board commitment per director. Swedish board directors are the busiest in the region, with 1.2 additional boards per director. Non-executives in Norway have 0.8 additional boards, non-executives in Denmark have 0.9 and non-executives on Finnish boards have 0.7 additional board commitments.
Among chairs, those on Finnish boards hold the fewest additional commitments, at an average of 0.9 per chair. Chairs on Danish boards have 1.1 additional boards, and those on Norwegian boards have 1.2. Chairs in Sweden are the busiest (1.8).
External board memberships