Some boards are appointing directors with sector-specific skills outside the usual core disciplines of finance, audit, risk and legal. But how do they actually impact on board performance?
As the perceived complexity of the business landscape continues to grow, some boards are seeking directors with expertise in specific areas. Sought-after skills include digital and technology, cybersecurity, AI, media/marketing and people and culture, says Graham Kittle, managing partner at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.
“In recent years there’s been an increased focus on bringing specialty insight into boards,” he says. “Whether it is in response to a market opportunity like AI or an imminently perceived threat, organisations need to become more agile. This can be achieved through having the right executives and board members to help govern through those changes. It’s not about changing the entire board, but bringing in some fresh thinking.”
For example, CISOs are increasingly active at board level in Australia, amid a backdrop of high-profile cyberattacks. But identifying a gap in the skills matrix requires open conversations and a learning mindset culture. “It’s about recognising we don’t have all the answers and there are different ways of getting them,” says Kittle. “Sometimes, it requires spot consulting or an advisory board, or appointing a specialist to the board. We know with cyber, if we don’t get across what we need to know, there can be implications.”
But a survey by American global executive search firm Spencer Stuart also found that, while specialised skills can help a board stay across certain issues, there are also concerns. Adding too many directors with specialised skills can negatively impact the board’s composition and may undermine its ability to oversee the most pressing issues and carry out full governance responsibilities.
“It’s not always about bringing a specialist onto the board,” says Kittle. “Sometimes, the situation is so dynamic, the person you bring onto the board may not have a meaningful contribution to make one or two years later. It’s not one approach fits all. The goal is getting the right insights and there are many ways to achieve that.”
The AICD view is that every board director should contribute across the full range of the board’s work. Having a NED with deep skills in a non-traditional area should not be a substitute for management expertise. In addition, it can risk some other board members deferring to the specialist on particular areas. Specialists still have the same duty of care to the corporation as other directors. The law has strict requirements for specialists and how they contribute to the board.
Case study 1: Elizabeth Minogue
Marketing executive Elizabeth (Libby) Minogue is chief marketing officer at Virgin Australia and a non-executive director at Tennis Australia and SaaS platform Marketplacer. She has also held senior roles at Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), online realtor REA Group and Foxtel.
Minogue began her board career in January 2016 at IAB, the peak trade association for online advertising in Australia. “At the time, I was in an executive role within IAB,” she says. “From an industry perspective, the board thought it was important to have someone with digital marketing skills. I saw it as a great opportunity to work with other executives and board members and to really understand how a board operated and differed from an executive role.”
Later that year, Minogue joined the board of Tennis Australia.
Hone your skills
“They had completed their board skills matrix and were looking for someone with expertise in commercial, marketing, brand and digital,” she says. “I’d also worked at various large organisations and completed the Company Directors Course. I wasn’t expecting to get through the many rounds of interviews. It was a rigorous process. Regardless of whether you get through, treat it as a learning opportunity. You get to meet different board members and understand the processes for nominations.”
With significant experience in senior commercial roles and direct expertise in digital transformation around marketing and branding, Minogue says she brings a commercial lens to her director roles. “I’m always willing to give more support or information if it’s needed.”
Case study 2: Stela Solar MAICD
Stela Solar is managing director of data and AI at Accenture and was previously general manager of the National Artificial Intelligence Centre. She spent a decade at Microsoft as global director of AI Solution Sales and Strategy, among other roles. She sits on the Data and AI Design council at Beyond Blue, previously served on the Monash Data Futures Institute industry advisory board and was co-chair of the Commonwealth AI Consortium.
As a technologist, Solar brings a systems-thinking approach to her board roles. She is passionate about how AI might transform business models and services development.
Accepting AI
“AI is evolving the very nature of work and how we undertake it,” she says. “However, I find most people in governance environments have preconceived assumptions about technology. I see myself as a catalyst for the art of the possible. I hear from executives quite often that boards are risk-averse. They ask, ‘How do I get the board to realise what this opportunity is?’”
Solar joined the Data and AI Design council at Beyond Blue this year to help leverage new opportunities in tech for better community health outcomes. “During a meeting, I helped the team think of new ways to use genAI,” says Solar. “Quite often, AI agents are spoken about in a customer-facing way — you might interact with an AI agent in a chatbot-style engagement, or optimise the customer experience in a contact centre. What I’ve found most intriguing is how AI agents are transforming mainframes and legacy infrastructure, and bridging silos across disconnected data sets. These are challenges that have been plaguing organisations for years.”
Case study 3: Dominic O’Hanlon FAICD
Dominic O’Hanlon FAICD is a tech entrepreneur with three decades of experience. A non-executive director of private companies for 25 years, he took on his first ASX-listed role in 2013. In March, he was appointed as a director to ASX-listed Adisyn, which provides graphene-based semiconductor technology with global potential. He is also on the board of ASX-listed Pentanet. He was CEO and MD of Rhipe for seven years.
“Rhipe was Microsoft’s largest cloud partner for the APAC region. A large part of my role was advising about coming technology trends, what we should be investing in and what outcomes we should be expecting.”
Translating the tech
O’Hanlon initially made the transition to board roles because the companies where he was MD were growing and taking on investors. He now exclusively focuses on NED roles.
“A CTO or CIO can provide technical advice to a board. But businesses can lack the ability to translate this information into business outcomes — what it means for the organisation’s corporate strategy, financial results and shareholder value creation. The value I bring to boards is by looking at technology from a business point of view and asking, is this something we should invest in? Should we do it now or wait to see what emerges?”
He cites AI as an example. “The board must consider a range of issues. Are we investing in this because we understand the outcomes we’re trying to create or is it simply we feel we have to? There’s a raft of analytics required that sit outside the expertise of the IT people. The key is to ask a lot of questions and gain a meaningful boardroom consensus on the answers.”
Q&A: 10 minutes with Mim Haysom GAICD
Mim Haysom’s introduction to governance came via the Company Directors Course, followed by a series of advisory board roles in the not-for-profit sector, including organisations she’d had exposure to through her work as a marketer.
She was invited to take on an advisory board role in 2019 at Wheelchair Rugby Australia, which had previously partnered with GIO. Haysom’s second board role was with the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising in Australia advisory board, as well as a board of trustees role at medical research organisation St Vincent’s Clinic Foundation. Haysom’s professional network opened the door to take her governance experience to new heights, taking on her first board role with fiduciary duties as a director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra in early 2022. She also joined the board of marketing industry body Australian Association of National Advertisers in early 2025.
How have you applied your expertise in marketing to your director career to date?
The role of the board is strategy and governance. Strategically, it’s about assisting with building brand, managing reputation and helping to identify growth opportunities. That’s what I've leaned into and where people have wanted me to assist. In both managing reputation and identifying growth, my experience in the media helped.
From a governance perspective, in bringing some of the experience from my corporate world into smaller NFPs, I’ve been able to say, ‘How are we thinking about data and privacy risk?’ for example. They are not necessarily always things that smaller, less resourced not-for-profits are thinking about — but they’re as liable as any big organisation.
Why do you think marketing is increasingly being elevated to board altitude?
What I see changing is people recognising the importance of managing brand reputation and thinking about the customer and who’s got the customer voice around the table.
There are a lot of modern-day case studies where you see organisations that have faltered because they haven’t really put a customer lens and a customer impact lens over decisions they were making. There is a heightened awareness of the need to do that.
What did you do to prepare to take on director and advisory board roles?
I did the Company Directors Course before I agreed to anything. I did that because I was curious about whether this was something I wanted to do.
I also felt, coming into Suncorp with my background being creative [advertising] agencies, I knew I was going to be engaging with an ASX-listed board regularly. I wanted to understand how boards think and the roles and accountabilities of boards, so that when I was engaging with my board as an executive, I understood what was important to them.
The course made me understand the difference between an executive role and a board role. They are different roles with very different accountabilities. It gave me a thorough understanding of the things I need to consider, to be aware of and to evaluate before I take on a board position.
If I hadn't done the Company Directors Course, I would have made the mistake of going into it like an executive in a management role, as opposed to a board role. It created a very clear delineation for me between my job at Suncorp as an executive versus my job as a director on a board.
There is a lot of risk attached to being a board director. I suspect — and worry — that many people go into some board roles uneducated on that. I would highly recommend that anyone who is contemplating taking on a board role, do the Company Directors Course or something similar, to really understand your accountabilities, your role and your liabilities. It was a brilliant course. I highly recommend it. I’ve put lots of my team onto it. They’re not necessarily board-aspiring, but just because it’s great training for strategy, governance and risk.
I’ve always relied on mentorship and guidance from others. I have a great network and a great friendship group who are board directors. For me, it’s a combination of formal training plus that very important mentoring and networking.
This article first appeared under the headline 'Problem Solvers’ in the May 2025 issue of Company Director magazine.
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