A Spotlight on Excellence

Celebrate the 2025 NACD Directorship 100^™ honorees and learn how they are meeting the moment.

For more than a decade, the NACD Directorship 100 awards have celebrated and recognized governance leaders whose expertise and dedication influence the future of corporate governance. Like the profession of directorship itself, this recognition and the Directorship 100 community have evolved significantly, particularly over the past five years.

“As a 2025 NACD Directorship 100 selection committee member and certified director, I am fortunate to see firsthand how this year’s class of honorees are facing heightened board oversight threats, risks, and business model disruptions as compared to years past,” said Renee Hornbaker, NACD.DC^®, the 2023 NACD Private Company Director of the Year.;

Board service demands greater responsibility and agility than ever before. Directors must remain at the forefront of rapidly shifting governance challenges, and demonstrate integrity, informed judgment, and uncompromising performance standards.

They are called to foster collaboration while engaging in constructive, and, at times, challenging, discourse among peers. They must balance oversight of emerging risks—from geopolitical instability to the rise of generative artificial intelligence—with the responsibility to steward long-term value creation. Board service is a formidable task and often thankless.

NACD continues to strengthen its monthslong nomination and selection process to reflect these heightened standards and expectations, and to ensure that the NACD Directorship 100 honorees comprise a community of leaders who have made recent and impactful contributions in the boardroom, within companies, and across the broader governance ecosystem. Gone are the days of submitting a nomination in isolation; nominations for all categories now include multiple reference letters from peers citing honorees’ transformative moments that demonstrate a profound impact on board readiness. This year’s Directorship 100 honorees were scored and selected by a total of 13 individuals and ratified by the NACD board.

The 2025 NACD Directorship 100 class exemplifies how directors and governance professionals are meeting the moment. These honorees are leading boardrooms through disruption, shaping resilient boards that are fit for the future, pursuing continuing education and credentialing, mentoring the next generation of board members, and amplifying the voice of the director across the broader governance community.

“The brain trust and insights of peers in each class of the Directorship 100 help me see around corners and act more proactively as I serve my private and public company boards,” Hornbaker said. “It is a privilege to interact with this NACD community of dynamic and thoughtful directors and governance professionals while striving to stay informed on current board challenges.”

Join NACD in recognizing the 2025 NACD Directorship 100, the most influential community of directors, executives, and governance professionals setting the standard for leadership in the boardroom and beyond.

By the Numbers

The following data pertain to the 104 individual 2025 NACD Directorship 100 honorees. These data reflect the type and number of boards that honorees serve and are pulled from honorees’ self-submitted verification forms.

Methodology

All Directorship 100 candidates are vetted and scored based on the qualitative and quantitative merit of the selection criteria demonstrated in the completed nomination forms and letters of recommendation. Selection criteria include integrity, mature confidence, informed judgment, and high performance standards for directors or demonstrated commitment for governance professionals. Recent contributions to the governance community are preferred.

The qualified and completed nominations for the director and governance professional candidates are reviewed and scored by NACD leadership. NACD annually forms an external selection committee to review the final slate of candidates for the B. Kenneth West Lifetime Achievement Award and Director of the Year awards.

The committee consists of individuals who have deep experience and knowledge of the current responsibilities of directors and governance professionals in their specific category. These individuals possess significant understanding of corporate governance practices and issues.

The selection committee is populated with previous Director of the Year and B. Kenneth West Lifetime Achievement Award honorees who understand the nature of the awards and their criteria. The annual list of potential selection committee members is vetted and approved by NACD senior staff with oversight responsibility for the NACD Directorship 100 awards program.

For the B. Kenneth West Lifetime Achievement Award and Directors of the Year, external selection committee members are presented with the final list of candidates, as well as expanded biographies, nomination forms, and letters of recommendation for each nominee, plus a candidate summary and supporting content that reflects nominees’ current contributions to the governance ecosystem. The selection committee members carefully review the candidate profiles within each category, participate in committee meetings to discuss candidate qualifications, and vote on their final recommendations for the recipients of the awards and runners-up. They agree to complete confidentiality throughout the entire process.

Selected winners are submitted to the NACD board for final review and subject to candidate verification and legal disclosure approvals. Subsequently, the winners are announced. If any selected honoree is disqualified or unable to participate, runners-up are then notified.

The nomination and selection criteria and process are evaluated annually by NACD staff, the selection committee members, and the NACD board to ensure the integrity of the peer-nominated program and its position as the premier corporate governance award.

This article is from the winter 2026 issue of Directorship.