NED vs Trustee vs Advisory Board Member: What’s the Difference?
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: The three roles are often confused but are fundamentally different in law. A non-executive director is a company director under the Companies Act 2006, with full statutory duties, …
How Many Days a Year Does a NED Role Take?
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: A standard non-executive director role takes roughly 15 to 25 days a year — as few as around 10 for a small organisation, and considerably more for the …
What Does an Audit Committee Actually Do?
What Does an Audit Committee Actually Do? By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the NED Capital Insights The audit committee is one of the most important committees of any board, and one of the least understood outside the boardroom. Its …
Preparing for Sale: How to Improve EBITDA and Attract Buyers
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: Preparing a company for sale is about more than pushing up profit. Buyers pay a multiple of EBITDA, so improving the quality and durability of those earnings — …
How Non-Executive Director Fees Are Typically Structured
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: A non-executive director’s fee is usually built from a fixed annual base fee, plus supplements for taking on extra responsibility — chairing the board, chairing or sitting on …
Common Misconceptions About the Non-Executive Director Role
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: The non-executive director role is widely misunderstood, and the misconceptions matter because they lead people to under- or over-estimate what the role involves. The big ones: that a …
How Much Time Does a Non-Executive Director Really Commit Each Month?
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: A non-executive director typically commits around one to two days a month on average — the conventional guide of roughly 10 to 20 days a year. But the …
When Boards Should Commission an Independent Review
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: A board should commission an independent review in five main situations: as a matter of routine good governance — the UK Corporate Governance Code recommends an externally facilitated …
Preparing for Your First Board Evaluation as a NED
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: A board evaluation — the review most boards carry out each year of how well they are working — can feel daunting the first time you go through …
How Cognitive Bias Shapes Strategic Board Decisions
By Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder of NED Capital · Part of the Board Governance Hub In short: Cognitive biases — systematic errors in judgement such as confirmation bias, anchoring and groupthink — distort board decisions by leading directors towards comfortable conclusions rather than correct ones. …


