Welcome to the board: 40 new directors in their 40s.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: THE NEXT BIG THING

A youthquake in the boardroom? Hardly ... but younger directors are moving in.

Only about 10% of directors at more then 3,000 listed companies are in their 40s, according to data from the EY Center for Board Matters. The average age of a director of a publicly traded company is 62 to 64. But who's counting? Well, we are. "Are Boards Too Old?" is a topic that Directors & Boards authors have addressed several times over the years, as well as the corollary question, "Do Boards Need Younger Members?"

Both questions are becoming more pressing as we continue to advance into the digital age, a trend well explored by Norbert Gottenberg in the preceding article. As a tie-in with the 40th anniversary of Directors & Boards, what follows is a lineup of 40 executives, all in their 40s, who were elected to boards in the past two years. It is a random sample culled from the research our team has done for the Directors Roster roundup of new directors that appears in each issue. It is a nicely balanced list of men and women, each with diverse backgrounds--not always digital-oriented but you will see that some do bring a digital touch with them to their new board seats (details are as of the time of their board elections).

Way back in one of our 1993 issues we quoted a disgruntled IBM Corp. shareholder lobbing a charge at the board members as being "too old ... most of them come from an era of manual typewriters and carbon paper." Keen observers of board composition, and that includes our Directors & Boards authors, recognize that newer talent needs to be tapped to capitalize on the opportunities that the changing business environment presents. Here is a look at that new talent.

1. Laura Alber, president and CEO of Williams-Sonoma Inc. (she was recognized by Fortune magazine for the digital transformation of the Williams-Sonoma brands)

   Board: Fitbit Inc., maker of products that track health and fitness

2. Kimberly Alexy, principal of Alexy Capital Management, a private investment firm, and a former technology hardware analyst for Prudential Securities

   Board: FireEye Inc., a provider of cybersecurity services

3. Mohamad Ali, president and CEO of Carbonite Inc., a provider of cloud solutions for home and business, and former chief strategy officer at Hewlett-Packard

   Board: iRobot Corp., a designer and builder of robots for consumer and military uses

4. Andy Ballard, founder and managing partner of Figtree Partners, an investment firm focused on digital media

   ...