Board Succession Planning

Highest Succession Risk Boards

Boards scoring 50+ on the 5-factor succession risk model — chair tenure, board fragility, skills concentration, pipeline readiness, sector supply

Company	Chair	Risk Score	Board Size	Chair Tenure	9+ yr Dirs	Skill Gaps	Successors	Rating
MKR Manuka Resources Limited	Dennis Peter Karp	81	3	10.5yr	1	8C / 2S	0	Critical
VSL Vulcan Steel Limited	Rhys Jones

Tenure Cliff Risk

Boards with 3 or more directors at 9+ years tenure — simultaneous rotation risk may cause institutional knowledge loss

Company	Board Size	9+ yr Directors	% At Risk	Avg Tenure	Ready Successors	Risk
TRA Turners Automotive Group	7	5	71%	10yr	2	Critical
MFT Mainfreight Limited	7	5	71%	18.2yr	3	High
HLG Hallenstein Glasson Holdings Limited

Skills Concentration Risk (Market-wide)

Skill categories with the most single-point-of-failure or critical gap boards across NZX

Skill Category	Critical (No Expert)	Total At Risk
Legal & Compliance	129	129
Industry Experience	129	129
Risk Management	129	129

NZX Director Tenure Distribution

Director cohorts by appointment era — identifies pipeline health and rotation needs

Early Rotation

10+ years

104

12% of all directors

Mid-Tenure

7-9 years

128

15% of all directors

Established

4-6 years

210

25% of all directors

New Cohort

0-3 years

411

48% of all directors

Sector Succession Risk

Average succession risk and critical board count by sector

Sector	Companies	Avg Risk	Critical	Avg Tenure
Consumer Discretionary	14	61	1	7.3yr
Energy	1	58	0	4.1yr
Materials	9	57	2	3.1yr

Full Succession Risk Register

All 129 NZX boards ranked by succession risk score (0-100)

Company	Risk	Board	Avg Tenure	9+ yr	Cliff	Rating
MKRMaterials	81	3	6.2yr	1	-	Critical
VSLMaterials	77	7	4.5yr	1	-

Methodology

The succession risk score is a 5-factor weighted model (each 20%):

Chair Tenure Risk: Scores 0 for chairs under 7 years, 40 at 7-8 years, 70 at 9-11 years, and 100 at 12+ years.
Board Fragility: Percentage of board members with 9+ years tenure. 40%+ of the board at rotation age scores 100.
Skills Concentration: Counts critical gaps (no experienced/expert director in a skill) and single-point-of-failure risks (only one). Each critical gap adds 20 points, each single-point adds 10.
Pipeline Readiness: Counts independent directors with 5+ years tenure as ready successors. 3+ ready successors scores 10 (low risk), 0 scores 100 (high risk).
Sector Supply: Board changes across sector peers in the past 12 months — higher churn indicates greater competition for replacement candidates.

Cliff risk is flagged when 3 or more directors on the same board have 9+ years tenure, indicating potential simultaneous rotation. Skills data comes from the IoD-aligned 12-category skills matrix extracted from director biographies.