New Zealand Corporate Boards in Transition : Composition, Activity and Incentives between 1995 and 2010

We document changes in New Zealand corporate board characteristics between 1995 and 2010, a period centred around the 2003 introduction of the NZX Corporate Governance Best Practice Code. Unsurprisingly, the representation of non-executive, independent and female directors on NZ boards rose during the period, as did real chair and director fees and the importance of board committees, while average board size fell. Perhaps more surprisingly, much of this movement occurred before 2003. Moreover, there are some intriguing dfferences between New Zealand and other, mainly larger, countries. We use this information to identify a number of unanswered questions about New Zealand corporate boards