Positioning Yourself for Compensated Board Service Opportunities

Originally published in Forbes Book Author Post, September 2026

Board service is an opportunity to extend your skills and experience into helping an institution shape its performance and future. Serving on a board can take many forms, ranging from director, trustee, and advisor roles across community organizations, professional organizations, universities, non-profits, and for-profit, private, and public companies. In many of my recent conversations, I have noticed a growing interest in compensated board service opportunities, particularly with for-profit companies. These boards are typically small governing bodies with fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders, and directors can be compensated with cash and/or equity for their service. To contrast this role with the executive leadership of the company, the executive leadership is responsible for managing and executing all company operations. At the same time, the board is responsible for oversight and governance, ensuring best practices are followed.

When Should You Pursue Board Service?

Depending on the stage of your career, ideally during the mid-stage or late-stage, compensated board service opportunities can be viewed as a means of career development and growth for an active employee or a career extension for an active retiree. For an active employee, this assumes a board role does not present a conflict of interest with your employer and the board company. Your contributions on the board are enabled by leveraging the skills and experience you have gained from your professional responsibilities. In return, your benefits include exposure to diverse business, leadership, and corporate challenges and opportunities.

The most common board service questions I get are:

• How do you get on a compensated board?
• What is your role as a board member?
• How do you position yourself for a leadership role on a board?

Getting into the Answers

For the first question, I have three recommendations:

Gain valuable experience from non-compensated board opportunities

Consider getting started at universities, professional organizations, and non-profit entities to position yourself for a compensated board opportunity. These experiences will teach you how to navigate a boardroom environment effectively and operate in a small-team format, with a focus on governance, oversight, and leveraging your professional skills and experiences.

Understand your alignment with the company’s skills matrix

These are typically published in the company’s proxy statement, which outlines the skills or capabilities the board requires. You’re looking for what I call a “fit-for-purpose.”

Be known for something by somebody

This is where your reputation matters. You must make the extra effort to put yourself in positions where you can be discovered. I have found several ways to increase visibility if your existing body of work is not widely known, including participating in university, community, and professional organization events and attending board education courses. It does not hurt to be “seen” learning more about how to be effective as a board member.

Through your networking efforts, you may be able to forge relationships with others, including those representing talent search firms, who can refer you directly to a board’s chairman, the company’s CEO, the nomination and governance committee chair, or current members of the board.

My recommendations for the second question are:

Think of yourself as a partner

Albeit not an equal one, to the company’s executive leadership, specifically the CEO. The role focuses on providing advice and counsel, rather than operations and execution.

Accept that your role is to govern and provide oversight

As a board member, you should always exercise your duty of care and independence, as this helps ensure the generation of shareholder value. There are at least five areas in which a director’s role can be impactful: First, a strategy is fundamental because the company needs a framework that establishes operational direction to sustain long-term market relevance and sustainability. Second, business performance is imperative for the company to achieve its operational and financial objectives, meet market expectations, and generate shareholder value. Third, talent management and succession planning are essential because executing the strategy and delivering the required business results require the right resources and leadership team. Fourth, enterprise risk and compliance are crucial, as effective risk management can significantly impact performance. By exercising best practices locally, nationally, and globally, the company can protect its integrity and operate as a trusted enterprise. And finally, the focus on vitality and well-being stems from recognizing that the company’s strength lies in its employees, who require attention to both their personal growth and their physical and mental health.

For the third question, it’s important to understand two categories of leadership on compensated boards:

Chairman or Lead Director

Depending on how the board’s leadership is structured, it typically provides the opportunity to become the Chairman or Lead Director, responsible for leading the board and working closely with the CEO.

Committee Chair

There might be opportunities to become a Chair of one of the various committees. This involves leading a committee composed of a subset of board members, typically with specific skills in that area or applicable business skills acquired through their professional responsibilities. Committees are where most of the work occurs, and they provide deeper engagement between board directors and company leadership on specific topics. This allows general board meetings to focus more on recommendations from the Committees for final decision-making or on broader discussions of various issues.

Position Yourself Better Through Better Understanding

The best way to position yourself for board leadership is to understand that the role is more about judgment, influence, facilitation, and relationship-building. You will need to spend time getting to know the board members and the senior leadership team. This may include investing time outside of the boardroom because relationships do matter.

In addition, investing in ongoing board education is beneficial for staying current with industry trends and best practices, as well as for networking with fellow directors from other boards to discuss common issues, challenges, and opportunities.

Finally, and most importantly, if you are interested in a leadership position, you must express your interest in being a leader. Sometimes, it is clear when a particular director will make an excellent committee chair, lead director, or board chairman. However, it is also beneficial to express your interests gracefully. Finally, it does not hurt if you exercise what I have termed “The Curiosity Advantage.” Great board leaders often don’t have all the answers, but they do ask the right questions. The advantage is gained by constantly exploring new ideas, adapting to unknown situations, and productively challenging the status quo.