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iQuestions Faculty, Jack Herschend 
 
 
Question: 
 
What is the ideal mix of talent and skill for a board of directors? 
 
Answer:   
 
When you select board members, you’re looking for men and women 
of integrity and good judgment—and the years it takes to build that 
good judgment—but also, I’ve found that it’s important to have 
specific disciplines represented on the board.  
 
To have a really strong finance board member coming out of the 
finance discipline is a great contribution to a board.  
 
To have somebody who comes out of the personnel discipline, again, is 
a tremendous contribution.  
 
And the marketing side is absolutely essential in our business to have 
one or two board members that come with that skill set. 
 
One skill set in the for-profit side that we’ve learned from experience 
we don’t want is the highly-creative person. We’re in the business that 
thrives on creativity, and yet the boardroom is not the place to 
introduce creativity. The boardroom’s job is an area of judgment and 
decision-making, and when you get creative, you tend to get in the 
beginning of the process, rather than in the decision-making side. 
 
The board for a not-for-profit needs additional board members, 
because various areas of the community need to be represented on 
the board, and also men and women that are willing to step up to the 
 
 
role of fundraising is important. So, generally the board for a for-profit 
organization is ideally about six, and for a not-for-profit about twelve. 
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