Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

39% of New Fortune 500 Directors Are First-Timers

Shelley Archambault · a16z Podcast | Building a Better Board · Jan 2, 2019 · at 2:56

Shelley Archambault shares data from the Spencer Stuart study regarding new board member appointments at Fortune 500 companies during an a16z panel.

0:00 / 0:04exact quote · 4.4s

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“39% of new directors are actually first-time directors.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

According to the Spencer Stuart study, 39% of new Fortune 500 board directors are first-time board members.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

In the 2014 Spencer Stuart U.S. Board Index (the most recent edition available at the time of the March 2015 podcast), Spencer Stuart reported that exactly 39% of newly appointed independent directors were serving on an outside public corporate board for the first time. This represented the largest proportion of first-time directors documented by the index since tracking began in 2006, precisely confirming the 39% statistic cited by Shelley Archambault.

The 2014 Spencer Stuart U.S. Board Index found that 39% of newly appointed independent directors were serving on their first outside public corporate board.
Spencer Stuart explicitly noted that the 39% figure in 2014 was the highest level recorded since they began tracking the metric in 2006.

Checked against

[1] sec.gov [2] a16z.com [3] spencerstuart.com [4] spencerstuart.com [5] chiefexecutive.net [6] boardmember.com [7] spencerstuart.com [8] spencerstuart.com

"Spencer Stuart U.S. Board Index" 2016 "first-time" "Spencer Stuart" "first-time" "Board Index" 39% OR "39 percent" "Shellye Archambeau" "Spencer Stuart" 39% "Shelley Archambault" OR "Shellye Archambeau" "39%" board directors Spencer Stuart US Board Index 2018 first time directors 39 "Spencer Stuart U.S. Board Index" 2017 "first-time" "Spencer Stuart" "39 percent" "first-time" Spencer Stuart 39 new board directors first time

assessed as of 2026-08-27

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

Fortune 500 Spencer Stuart

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