ChairX: Profile of an NXD

Our CEO, Caroline Hayward, talks about ways to launch your portfolio career as a NED or Chair and skills and experience that may be relevant going forwards.

As an ex-CEO/ Chair you may have exited your company and have varied experience and skills to apply to other businesses in a Non Executive or Board capacity.

It’s a very different role as a NED or chair ; you will need to be well organized and fundamentally you will be influencing, advising and not actually doing any of the work yourself (unless hired as a consultant as well)

Key traits required for a good NED/Chair are listening skills, emotional intelligence, open-minded, well-read and well-prepared and with the ability to stand back and offer a balanced view.

Benefits of a portfolio or Non Executive career include flexibility, income and independence as well as the possibility of a diverse portfolio of interests.

You are, however, alone with no team or support and constantly looking for more roles- you will be "retired" after 3 years in most cases.

There are liabilities (you will need insurance) and it can be stressful and more work than you expected in preparing and attending the Board Meetings.

Assuming you have a strong business background, and ideal is to have an exit behind you, get your first NXD role whilst still in your executive capacity.

You will need an extensive personal business network to draw upon to support your roles and should constantly be looking for new and relevant connections.

Collaborative International business networking to extend and enhance your CXO, NED and Chair network such as ChairX is ideal.

You can watch the video here