Continuity as a Comfort Zone: What Is Really Holding Swiss Boards Back

30 years in office. Re-elected 32 times. What sounds like stability at first glance is, on closer inspection, a strategic challenge – for any company that wants to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.

The numbers speak clearly: in Swiss non-executive boards, long-term mandates are not the exception – they are, in many companies, the norm. Continuity is treated as a virtue, stability as a guarantee of trust. But when does proven experience tip into structural inertia? And who is actually asking the uncomfortable questions – when everyone in the room has been there for as long as anyone can remember?

This is not an argument against experience. It is an argument for reflection. And for boards that regularly ask themselves: are we still the body this company needs today – or the one that built it?

1. Competency Profiles Have an Expiry Date

What a board member brought to the table ten years ago may today be little more than background knowledge. Digitalisation, AI, cybersecurity, ESG regulation, geopolitical risk – the demands on supervisory boards have changed fundamentally. Companies that do not regularly review their competency matrix risk being blind to precisely the risks that are coming next.

The decisive question is not: “Is this member performing well?” – but: “Do we have the profiles on this board today that we will need tomorrow?”

2. Term Limits as a Governance Tool – Taken Seriously, Not Just on Paper

Many companies have term limits written into their articles of association – yet more than a few treat them as guidelines rather than boundaries. But term limits are not a bureaucratic constraint. They are a strategic instrument: they force the conversation about renewal before it becomes an emergency.

Because after many years in the same board, something shifts. Not necessarily performance – but posture. The willingness to question fundamentals. The capacity to approach the familiar with curiosity. Board fatigue is not a failure – it is a human response to long-standing routine. Companies that apply term limits consistently protect their boards from this slow erosion of critical distance.

3. Homogeneity and Diversity: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Those who have been in office for a long time tend to select successors in their own image. Same background, similar networks, familiar thinking patterns. What feels like quality assurance is, in reality, a gradual homogenization of the board. Innovation, however, emerges where different perspectives meet – not where everyone thinks like those who have always been there.

Diversity across gender, age, origin, education and years of service is not a nice-to-have. It is a structural prerequisite for sound decision-making. Homogeneous boards are more susceptible to cognitive bias, more likely to miss blind spots, and more prone to conformist thinking.

Particularly striking is how often women over 50 are overlooked in succession considerations – despite frequently embodying exactly what companies claim to be looking for: decades of leadership experience, established networks, sound judgement, and resilience. They are not “too old” or “not ambitious enough.” They are ready. It is time for companies to fundamentally rethink their assumptions about age and ambition.

4. Succession Planning Is Not an HR Task – It Is Strategy

Many companies only think about board succession when someone steps down unexpectedly or reaches a statutory age limit. That is reactive – and costly. Those who approach succession planning as a continuous strategic process build a pipeline: they know which profiles will be needed in three years, identify potential candidates early, and invest deliberately in onboarding knowledge.

A well-governed board plans its own renewal – before renewal is forced upon it.

5. Board Evaluation: Reflection as an Obligation, Not an Option

No senior executive would consider an annual review with their team unnecessary. Yet in many companies, boards evaluate themselves rarely – or only as a formality. A structured, honest board evaluation, ideally with independent facilitation, creates what is so often missing in day-to-day work: the protected space to speak plainly. About roles, profiles, contributions – and about who might do well to step aside so that something new can emerge.

Continuity is a strength. But it is not a strategy.

The best boards know that their most important task is not to protect their own tenure – but to safeguard the future fitness of the organization. That takes courage: the willingness to question oneself, and to remain genuinely open to change. Neither succession planning nor board evaluation is an admission of weakness or a loss. They are the opposite: two of the smartest investments a board can make in its own effectiveness.

Inspired by the Bilanz article «Viele Verwaltungsräte behalten ihr Mandat über Jahrzehnte» (May 2026).

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