Shearman & Sterling LLP Board Refreshment | 36
Average Director Tenure
The average board
tenure at the
Top 100 Companies
is eight years.
Age 70–71
Age 72
Age 73–74
Age 75 or older
Topic not addressed
Mandatory Retirement Age
Although not required by either
the NYSE or Nasdaq listing standards,
72 of the Top 100 Companies have
disclosed a mandatory retirement
age for their non-management
directors. Of these, 43 companies
expressly permit the board or
a committee of the board to make
exceptions to the retirement age
policy. Age 72 continues to
be the most common age set
for mandatory retirement.
3
34
7
28 28
Mechanisms to Encourage
Board Refreshment
Three of the principal board
refreshment mechanisms are
mandatory retirement age, term
limits and the board self-evaluation
process. While the use of a mandatory
retirement age mechanism continues
to be high and term limits continue
to be low, use of the board self-
evaluation process mechanism
appears to be increasing.
6 years
of service
9 years
of service
11–15
years of
service
Less than
6 years
of service
22
8 years
of service
7 years
of service
10 years
of service
More than
15 years
of service
Board Refreshment
Board refreshment continues to be one of the key issues facing nominating and governance
committees, and boards as a whole, as they are increasingly under pressure to change the
face of the boardroom by re-examining topics such as director tenure, experience, performance
and diversity, with gender and ethnic diversity at the forefront.
Data
15
10
14
17
3
2
17
