By Jan Koors, senior managing director and president of the Western region at Pearl Meyer, and Lizett Meraz, analyst at Pearl Meyer

Board refreshment is one of the areas that we expect shareholder activists and institutional investors will continue to emphasize in an attempt to expand diversity, invigorate fresh ideas and perspectives, and bolster the expertise of the board. Further, a robust refreshment plan aligned with director pay can play a pivotal role in bringing new ideas and strategic expertise to your board

We offer several actions to consider in order to promote refreshment, and outline some director compensation design features that may be inadvertently discouraging appropriate board refreshment.