Alice Korngold

Historically, boards of directors have been bastions of old power. A person qualified for the board by being a member of an exclusive class. Old power, as defined by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms in their new book, New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World and How to Make it Work for You, “works like currency. It is held by few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven.”

Using Heimans and Timms definition, boards of directors have been quintessential old power. It is becoming evident, however, that these homogenous boards comprised of the anointed actually stunt corporate growth.

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