The Non-Exec’s Function

Between the early 1980s and the early 1990s, the proportion of PLCs with non-executive directors on their boards rose from around 50 per cent to over 90 per cent.3 At the same time, smaller companies, and particularly private companies, were also increasingly appointing non-executive members to their boards, and as was suggested in the previous section it is perhaps logical to postulate that it was the increase in the role and significance of venture capital houses, as much as anything, which led to this taking place.