Board Effectiveness Review 2025: Measuring board effectiveness across the GCC

The institute's ninth board effectiveness survey, dated November 2025, drawing on 193 respondents plus 14 confidential interviews with senior GCC board members and executives; entity domicile is Saudi Arabia 52 per cent, United Arab Emirates 19 per cent and Bahrain 9 per cent. Only 32 per cent report a formal selection, induction, review, development and deselection process, 67 per cent report no formal succession plan, and only 3 per cent drafted or reviewed a formal written CEO succession plan in the past twelve months. On evaluation, 26 per cent run internal reviews and 21 per cent use external parties, and among those using external evaluators 67 per cent could not state a frequency or had no set schedule, up from 48 per cent in 2023.