AI and advanced tech have changed the succession planning game. Changing roles, automation, and the evolving world of work make prepping for the future of business increasingly complex. Do you have the talent needed to face the challenges ahead?
Charlie Grubb (Senior Managing Director at Robert Half Executive Search) and Ben Hewitt (Managing Director at Robert Half Executive Search) recently hosted a roundtable event with C-suite and board members across sectors like tech, legal, healthcare, and energy to discuss the key insights raised in our recent Towards the C-Suite 2035 whitepaper.
The whitepaper, which explored the 10-year challenges of C-suite and executive leadership, strategies for effective succession planning, and the development of future leaders, was based on research conducted across 400 leaders within private commerce and industry businesses in the UK and Europe, as well as 100 PE investors.
Our roundtable of experts discussed their personal experiences, professional opinions, and predictions for future-facing board skills and the evolution of the boardroom. Here's what they considered to be critical skills that boardrooms and leadership pipelines will need in the future, and how the boardroom may change.
Future leadership skills involve AI and data knowledge combined with human judgement
AI knowledge will be a key attribute for boardrooms and future leaders, according to 84% of leaders surveyed for our whitepaper. The critical skill at the core is understanding how to make ethical decisions based on data, while keeping the story and people at the centre of it all. Leaders of tomorrow will understand the balance between investing in AI while maintaining an empathetic, people-led strategy to make that transformation happen.
Attendees agreed that AI is no longer a distant horizon. It's already reshaping how boards think, work and lead. As one attendee put it, “Eighteen months ago, AI was something we talked about in the boardroom from time to time. Now it comes up every time. And while boards worry about keeping up, the 20-year-olds have already been using it daily — they just didn't put a big label on it. The pace is a real challenge.”
Yet no one believed technical skill alone could future-proof a board. “One thing that won't change, whether you gloss on the AI or the transformational things as core skills, the traditional core skills of authentic leadership — people, cash, and customers — don't go away,” said one attendee. “Business is a people business, with or without AI. That core is non-negotiable on the board.”
Attendees agreed that tomorrow's leaders will need to balance AI-driven insight with human judgment, while staying open to learning from younger digital natives. Several stressed that leaders should adopt AI tools firsthand — not to become technologists, but to stay curious, credible, and connected to how their organisations work.
Inclusion and transformation are critical for strategic success
Inclusion and business transformation are key strategic levers for any organisation today. While investment in AI is essential, real efficiencies only happen when technology meets the cultural and structural shifts that transformation demands.
Attendees agreed that boards can’t hope to “transform” anything if they don’t deliberately involve younger generations, frontline workers, and digitally born talent in the decision-making process. “We started inviting future leaders into board meetings — first to present, then to sit through the full session. The transformation was unbelievable. They contributed real insight, and the senior team sharpened up, too,” said one.
Another attendee felt that successful business transformation with AI should be viewed as an opportunity for leaders to evolve their way of thinking. He recommended seeing transformation as a series of loops rather than a straight line that denies the chance to learn and grow. He said:
“It’s almost like progressive overload of the business — what is its maximum capability right now? How can we take it to the edge? Learn a bunch of stuff, feed that back in, and then you have the opportunity to get to a 2x loop and then a 4x loop and an 8x loop. And that skill of thinking in loops rather than lines is the thing that I think a lot of leaders can take on in terms of how the board should be thinking in the future.”
Attendees also highlighted their concerns about the future leadership pipeline, now that AI is taking on the 'grunt work' that forms the foundation of many entry-level jobs, thereby limiting career progression. One attendee said, “The ladder is being pulled up. Not that my office isn't crammed full of bright, committed young people, but I just feel that the pipeline of people who are going to fill our boards 10 years out and 20 years out, it's not as obvious to me where they come from.”
The skills, shape, and lineup of the boardroom of the future
“I recently spoke with a client who has the luxury of having a chief sustainability officer. It's an important commitment to them. The role we call the Chief Human and transformation officer, which is a combination of the CPO Chief HR officer becoming a transformation person," Charlie said. "But clearly there will be hybrid responsibilities for all boardroom leaders as we go down the next 10 years.”
It was predicted that the size of the board would shrink to three or four individuals with broad skill sets rather than single specialisms. An attendee said, “I can see ‘roll on, roll off’ roles; finance or HR might be critical at one point but not constant. And I can see a CEO not just as a leader of strategy, but with deeper operational, financial and technical skills. Future leaders are going to need to be a black belt in a few more things, not just one.”
Roundtable attendees also felt the inclusion of AI in the boardroom would fundamentally shift roles and dynamics, with one saying, “I think the role of the NED is going to be even more important, because you need that balanced, grounded perspective.” Another attendee agreed, saying, “Human judgment will remain central, just amplified by AI and data. That’s why the Chief Data and AI Officer becomes core to the business — not just an enabler, but someone running a lot of the core things that keep the organisation moving.”
“I think the mindset of the board will have to shift,” said another. “It must be more growth-oriented—whether that’s innovation or the willingness to transform the business—because your competitors face exactly the same challenge. A traditional board with traditional careers and risk-averse instincts will simply be too slow over the next ten years.”
