Directorship^® Magazine

Directorship^® is NACD’s flagship magazine and an exclusive NACD membership benefit. All 24,000-plus NACD members receive the print magazine on a quarterly basis and have access to the online version. Directorship magazine is tailored to corporate board directors, C-suite–level management, and those allied to them. Articles should follow a magazine style with a clear and professional tone, providing thought leadership on topics reflecting the author’s area of expertise. Occasionally, we accept opinion pieces, case studies, or first-hand accounts that offer lessons for directors. When considering a subject for a magazine piece, ask yourself: What would have the most impact on the reader in his or her role as a director or senior company officer? 

Directorship Online provides noteworthy weekly articles that cover a wide variety of corporate governance topics, including analyses of current events that impact corporate board directors, C-suite–level management, and those allied to them.  

The editors reserve the right to reject submissions and edit all accepted pieces for accuracy, clarity, length, and adherence to NACD style guidelines. Submissions that are primarily promotional in nature will not be accepted, and language with a marketing focus will be revised to meet our editorial standards. An edited version of the article will be emailed to the author for final approval before publication. 

Additionally, NACD editors welcome article ideas. 

First, email a story pitch to editors@nacdonline.org that contains a tentative headline; a two-to-three sentence description explaining the proposed angle; and the author's name, phone number, and email address. A brief outline (not a fully written draft) is also acceptable.

If NACD editors approve the pitch, an article draft should be submitted as an email attachment. All submissions should be sent as Microsoft Word documents and in single space, Times New Roman, 12-point font, with little to no formatting. 

All articles submitted must be original and exclusive to NACD and should not have been previously published elsewhere. We do not accept articles written by artificial intelligence (AI); if you used AI to outline or research your article, please disclose this to us.

We encourage the citation of examples and quotes from directors. Be sure to include any links to external sources for fact-checking purposes, which will help speed up editing.

Charts and tables for Directorship magazine articles are encouraged and should be submitted separately in Excel or Adobe Illustrator format. Please submit the underlying source data for all charts so that we can recreate them if necessary. NACD reserves the right to reject charts if they do not conform with NACD brand guidelines or for any other reason. 

Directorship magazine article length varies depending on if the submission is intended for a column or a feature article. Column-length articles typically have a maximum word count of 700 words for one page or 1,400 words for two pages. Feature article length varies from 1,400 to 2,800 words; occasionally, feature articles may be longer.  

Directorship Online article length varies from a minimum of 600 to no more than 1,100 words. 

In addition to the article, please email a one-to-two–line author bio and a recent full-color headshot as a JPG or TIFF (minimum 300 dpi). For magazine submissions, please also send the author’s mailing address. 

Please provide information regarding any relationship with companies and sources in the proposed article, including specifying if you have a consulting relationship or if you serve on a corporate board.