Board Performance Trends 2016–2025
Introduction
The importance of board evaluations has increased significantly over the past decade. Rising expectations regarding good governance and the strategic impact of boards have made board evaluations an important tool for enhancing shareholder value. The growing number and increasing professionalization of shareholder nomination boards have also contributed to the wider adoption of board evaluations. At the same time, the focus of board evaluations has shifted from administrative effectiveness toward assessing boards’ actual impact, strategic capabilities, and future readiness.
For many years, IMS Talent has conducted board evaluations for companies across various industries. The accumulated data comprises a broad range of anonymized assessments of collective board performance as well as peer reviews of individual board members. This data enables the identification of long-term trends, strengths, and development areas in board work.
Research Design and Methodology
IMS Talent’s analysis is based on two complementary evaluation frameworks. The first is a board evaluation that assesses the board’s collective performance, including strategic impact, decision-making, governance processes, competencies, executive evaluation, and succession planning. The second is a peer review assessment, which evaluates individual board members’ expertise, strategic contribution, ability to challenge management constructively, and overall value added to the board.
The dataset covers trend data from collective board evaluations and peer reviews conducted between 2016 and 2025.
IMS Talent’s evaluation model combines quantitative comparability with qualitative interpretation. In addition to numerical ratings, the analysis examines recurring themes, development trends, and connections between different evaluation methods. As a result, the evaluation provides not only a snapshot of current performance but also concrete insights for future board development.
Trends in Collective Board Evaluations
The board evaluation data demonstrates that board work has become significantly more professional during the period from 2016 to 2025. Collective board competence has increased, and board diversity has improved considerably. Throughout the review period, the strongest areas of board performance have been governance processes, board dynamics, chairmanship, and committee work. Boards consistently receive high ratings for their collective expertise and business understanding. Collaboration between the CEO and the board is also typically rated highly.
The data from 2016–2025 indicates a steady improvement in the perceived clarity of corporate strategies. Boards increasingly view strategy as well-structured and understandable. However, evaluations related to strategy execution have not improved at the same pace. While strategies are generally considered clear, boards believe that their ability and mechanisms to influence execution require further strengthening.
The most significant ongoing development themes are digitalization, artificial intelligence, customer insight, and market position assessment. Although ratings related to the utilization of AI and digitalization have improved during the review period, they still remain clearly below other areas of board performance. It is also noteworthy that the relative strength of customer and market perspectives has weakened, highlighting the need to strengthen boards’ outside-in thinking.
CEO and executive team succession planning has developed positively but remains one of the most persistent long-term development areas in board work.
Trends in Individual Board Member Evaluations
Peer review data concerning individual board members provides an interesting perspective on the evolution of board work. While the development of collective board competence has been gradual, evaluations of individual board member capabilities show a more pronounced upward trend.
The most significant improvements relate to board members’ strategic contribution and their ability to support management. Board members are increasingly expected to actively participate in strategic discussions, evaluate alternatives, and serve as sparring partners for management. The data indicates that Finnish boards today possess substantially more business, strategic, and industry-specific expertise than at the beginning of the review period.
One of the most interesting findings concerns the courage to challenge management and prevailing views. Although this area has also improved, it remains a relative development theme compared with the overall level of competence. This suggests that boards are no longer primarily struggling with competence gaps; instead, the challenge lies in fully utilizing existing expertise in goal setting, decision-making, and strategic discussions.
Analysis of Combined Board and Peer Review Evaluations
A unique strength of IMS Talent’s evaluation model lies in combining collective board evaluation data with peer review data. Together, these datasets provide a clearer picture of actual board effectiveness than either method alone.
The combined analysis shows that Finnish boards have evolved from a primarily supervisory role toward a strategic sparring role. Boards participate more actively in strategy development, provide stronger support to management, and contribute more insight-driven value to decision-making. At the same time, board member competence has reached a high level.
A key finding, however, is that the primary challenge in board work is no longer acquiring expertise but utilizing it effectively. Boards have access to substantial experience, industry knowledge, and strategic insight, but fully leveraging this potential requires more open discussion, more active challenge, and a strong ability by the chairperson to act as the architect of boardroom dialogue.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Based on IMS Talent’s extensive evaluation data, the analysis demonstrates that Finnish board work has developed significantly over the past decade. Boards are now more professional, more competent, and better led than before. In particular, chairmanship, board dynamics, committee work, and collaboration with the CEO have strengthened systematically.
At the same time, the data indicates that the next phase of development will involve predominantly strategic challenges. Boards must strengthen their customer and market orientation, improve their ability to address digitalization and artificial intelligence from a business perspective, and establish more systematic practices for succession planning and capability renewal. In recent years, achieving growth has emerged as a central board-level theme. This requires not only strategic expertise but also the ability to set ambitious goals and rigorously oversee and monitor execution.
According to IMS Talent’s view, the most effective boards distinguish themselves through their ability to combine high levels of competence, strong market and customer understanding, and courageous strategic dialogue and goal setting. Increasingly, a board’s competitive advantage stems from its ability to anticipate changes in the business environment, challenge management constructively, and support both strategy execution and organizational renewal.
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