Imagine a CEO running a fast-growing logistics company in Kampala. The trucks are on the road day and night. Competition is fierce, fuel prices swing wildly, and potholes appear overnight. Now picture a board filled with people who have never once sat in traffic on Jinja Road at rush hour. They give polished speeches on “efficiency” but have no clue what it takes to keep a fleet moving when half the trucks are grounded waiting for spares. That is the tragedy of how most boards are recruited, plenty of prestige, little relevance.
The unwritten rule is that board members must be “big names.” Retired permanent secretaries, former bank CEOs, or professional directors who sit on six other boards. They bring titles, but when the company faces an existential crisis, cyber theft, regulatory clampdowns, or a supply chain collapse, they are spectators. A board built for show cannot drive the truck uphill.
The winning CEO takes a different route. Recruitment starts with clarity about the road ahead. If the business is going digital, you need someone who has built and scaled tech platforms, not another economist. If your risk is cash leakage, recruit someone who has fought fraud in the trenches. If your strategy is regional expansion, add a director who has crossed borders, battled customs, and won market share in tough terrain.
Practical ways to do it:
- Build a Board Skills Matrix linked to strategy. Update it annually.
- Source from unusual pipelines, entrepreneurs, cybersecurity leaders, climate scientists, union leaders.
- Enforce term limits so directors do not get too comfortable.
- Recruit for courage, not comfort. The best director is the one who asks the awkward question when everyone else nods.
Test candidates in live scenarios. Let them challenge management on a real business case. Their instincts will reveal if they add value.
"A CEO who recruits for the journey ahead builds a board that is not a passenger in the truck, but a mechanic, navigator, and risk spotter, helping the driver win the race."
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Recruitment is not about filling seats; it is about assembling a pit crew for the long race ahead. A weak pit crew can cost you the race even if the driver is brilliant. Mr Strategy’s skills matrix is a starting point, Table 1.
Table 1: The Board skills Matrix
# | Dimension | Why it matters | Recruitment question | Leadership insight |
1 | Digital & AI | Digital disruption is destroying old models. Only those who have built and scaled under fire can guide. | Who has built digital systems under real pressure? | When everything goes offline for 48 hours, what is your first call, engineers, customers, or regulators? |
2 | Risk & Resilience | Shocks are certain, pandemics, fraud, cyberattacks, political unrest. A director must have lived failure. | Who has rebuilt after failure and come back stronger? | Tell us the last time your organisation almost collapsed, what mistake did you personally make? |
3 | Stakeholder Savvy | Boards today must navigate politics, ESG activists, unions, regulators, and customers simultaneously. | Who has converted critics into allies? | How do you win over an opponent who benefits more from your failure than your success? |
4 | Regional Edge | Growth requires crossing borders where rules change overnight and trust is currency. | Who has won in tough regional markets? | What is the most dangerous border you have ever crossed in business, and what did you learn? |
5 | Courage & Dissent | Groupthink kills boards. The bravest voice often saves the company. | Who has a track record of confronting power with facts? | If the CEO is wrong and the Chair is silent, would you risk being unpopular to save the company? |
6 | Culture & Talent | Strategy fails without the right people. Directors must understand culture levers, not just numbers. | Who has led a cultural turnaround in a resistant organisation? | Which single behaviour in leaders have you fired for, and why would you do it again? |
7 | Geopolitical Lens | Global shocks, wars, sanctions, climate rules, will define winners and losers. | Who has navigated regulatory or political hostility across multiple states? | What political risk would make you walk away from a profitable deal immediately? |
8 | Capital & Value | Boards must guard the value engine, capital allocation, funding, and investor confidence. | Who has raised and protected capital in hostile markets? | If cash is tight, which sacred project would you kill first, even if it angers management? |
A CEO who recruits for the journey ahead builds a board that is not a passenger in the truck, but a mechanic, navigator, and risk spotter, helping the driver win the race.
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