Meetings
Boards met an average of 7.7 times in the year, a slight decrease from 7.4 times in 2023 (and less than the eight times of a decade ago). This is on par with the US and the UK but lower than many countries in Europe (in Latam, boards in Brazil and Chile boards meet 15 and 14 times per year respectively).
Average attendance at meetings was 98%.
There was a marginal decrease in the average number of ad hoc and strategy committee meetings, from five in 2003 to 4.4; the average number of strategy meetings was 1.3, compared with 1.9 in 2023.
MEETING DISTRIBUTION BY SECTOR
| Average # of meetings | Total number of companies | Minimum | Maximum | Median |
|---|
| TMT & S | 6.7 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 7 |
| Industrial | 6.6 | 18 | 4 | 15 | 5 |
| Financial Services | 6.2 | 19 | 4 | 14 | 6 |
| Consumer | 6.1 | 9 | 4 | 11 | 5 |
| Healthcare | 6 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
External commitments
Boards are under greater scrutiny and pressure than ever and effective execution of a board role demands time and commitment.
In most of the larger companies on the JSE and at many included herein, an executive is often only allowed one external board role at a large entity and as such, several boards do not have sitting executives amongst their members. Just 3.2% (20) of board directors in this study (chairs and NEDs) hold executive roles elsewhere. Sitting executive are more commonly found on the boards of smaller companies.
68% (up from 66% in 2023), of NEDs and 22% (down from 26% in 2023) of executive directors have commitments on more than one listed company board.
67% of chairs have additional listed company board commitments.
EXTERNAL COMMITMENTS
| 2023 | 2024 |
|---|
| % NEDs with additional board commitments | 65.8% | 68.5% |
| % Chairs with additional board commitments | 67.3% | 66.7% |
| Chair average external board members | 2.2 | 2.1 |
| Chairs with >= 3 board mandates | 20 | 19 |
| % Executive directors with additional board commitments | 25.6% | 22.6% |
| % CEOs who sit on outside boards | 27.1% | 26.7% |
| % CFOs who sit on outside boards | 30.8% | 25.6% |
Board evaluation
Of the boards that reported on whether they had conducted a board evaluation, 44% (22) reported being evaluated by an external auditor, down from 55% (28) in 2023.
54% (27) of companies reported having been evaluated by an internal auditor, up from 40% (19) in 2023 and similar to 10 years ago.
South Africa ranks highly among countries in EMEA when it comes to external board evaluations; only the UK (45%) and Spain (46%) do more, with Italy on a par at 44%.
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL BOARD EVALUATION