The Skills Board Chairs Need Now

Harvard Business Review (Mar-Apr 2026 issue) by Pedro Fontes Falcão and London Business School professor Randall S. Peterson argues that the modern chair must mediate increasingly divergent stakeholder demands while steering through technological disruption and societal scrutiny — and that traditional credentials like strategic acumen and executive experience now matter less than agility and skill in handling complexity and conflict. For SEA mid-market boards selecting their next chair, the article reframes chair-selection criteria away from CV grandeur toward proven conflict-navigation.