GUIDES
By InsidEntity Editorial Desk · Sep 25, 2026 · 8 min read
Who sits on a company’s board, what else they sit on, and whether anything in their record is worth a closer look.
Every company is run by people. Before you invest in a company, join it, supply it or lend to it, check the directors, not only the accounts. A director check answers six questions: who is on the board, how long they have served, whether they are independent, how many boards they sit on, whether they have ever been disqualified, and how they left earlier boards. Together, those answers are a governance check.
A director check will not uncover fraud on its own, and public records cannot show everything that happens inside a boardroom. But governance weaknesses often leave signs in the board record before they reach the accounts. After Enron collapsed, a US Senate inquiry found that financial ties between the company and several of its directors had compromised the board’s independence.
Much of what a director check looks for is on the public record. It is simply spread across many places. This guide shows where to find it, step by step.
What a director check should cover
- Who are the directors? The current board, each person’s role, and whether they are executive or non-executive.
- How long have they served? Long tenure can weaken a director’s independence from management. Governance codes such as South Africa’s King IV and the UK Corporate Governance Code ask boards to justify a director’s independence after nine years; InsidEntity’s independence test uses ten.
- Are they independent? Whether a director has family, business or shareholding ties to the company, or once worked for it.
- How many boards do they sit on? A director with many seats has less time for each one.
- Have they ever been disqualified or barred? A delinquency order, a disqualification or a regulator’s ban is a formal legal record.
- How have they left previous boards? A pattern of sudden resignations, particularly where the circumstances are unclear or coincide with significant corporate events, deserves closer examination.
Step 1: Start with the company’s own disclosures
The annual report is the first stop. It names the directors, describes each one’s role and committees, and usually states when they were appointed and whether the board regards them as independent. Listed companies also announce every board change, appointment and resignation through their exchange’s news service, such as SENS in South Africa.
For US public companies, proxy statements must disclose certain specified legal proceedings involving directors and executive officers during the preceding ten years, when those proceedings are material to evaluating the person’s ability or integrity to serve.
Step 2: Check the official registers
Registers show what the company’s own report may not.
- South Africa. The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) records directorships and keeps a register of delinquent and probationary directors. For anyone who has worked in financial services, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) also publishes a register of debarred persons.
- United Kingdom. Companies House shows a person’s current and resigned appointments as an officer of UK companies, and separately publishes a register of disqualified directors.
- United States. There is no single national register to check. A director’s record has to be pieced together across regulators: SEC actions against a named person can be searched through SEC Action Lookup, Individuals (SALI), while bank, fund and insurance bans sit with each sector’s own regulator.
For how disqualification works in each system, see director disqualification in South Africa and director disqualification in the United States.
Step 3: Look at every board, not just one
A director’s record at one company tells only part of the story. Check every board they sit on now and every board they have left. Three things are worth examining.
Capacity. Serving on many boards at once limits the time a director can give each one. In InsidEntity’s Company Risk Rating, the directorship-count part of Director Capacity steps down as seats rise:
| Board seats held | Directorship-count score |
|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | 1.5 (full marks) |
| 3 | 1.0 |
| 4 | 0.5 |
| 5 or more | 0 |
Connections. Directors who sit together on several boards, or who also run a major shareholder or supplier, may warrant a closer look at how their independence was assessed.
Past exits. How a director left earlier boards matters as much as where they sit now. Note the date of each resignation and read the announcement around it. A resignation close to a profit warning, a restatement, an auditor change or business rescue is worth examining, as is a pattern of short stints. Timing alone does not establish wrongdoing. Each InsidEntity company report carries a Company Past Directors section, which lists who has left the board and when.
Step 4: Test tenure and independence
A director the company calls independent may have served for more than a decade, own shares, or have business dealings with the company. Each of these is a reason to read the company’s independence assessment closely, and to see how the board explains its conclusion.
Compare each director’s appointment date with today’s date. Then read the annual report for any related-party transactions, fees or shareholdings. If the fees a director earns from the company make up a large share of their income, that is a tie worth noting too.
Step 5: Read the signals around the board
Some of the clearest governance signals come from changes to the board, not from any one person on it. Two deserve particular attention.
- Director resignations. One resignation is routine. Several in a short period, or a resignation with no clear reason given, can point to disagreement inside the boardroom. See when director resignations are a red flag.
- Auditor resignations. An auditor that steps down mid-term, or a company that changes auditor shortly before results, raises questions worth putting to the company. See what an auditor resignation really signals.
For what happens when things go wrong, see when directors are personally liable.
A quick governance checklist
One check is not optional. Before you rely on a company, confirm:
- No current director appears on a register of disqualified, delinquent or debarred directors.
A director on one of those registers is a stop, not a score. For the rest, the aim is to have looked into each point, not to tick every box:
- I know who every current director is, and their role.
- I have checked whether any director called independent has served more than nine years, and how the board explains it.
- I have checked the directors described as independent for family, business or shareholding ties.
- I know how many board seats each director holds.
- I have checked how each director left their previous boards, and looked into any exits around significant corporate events.
- I know whether the board has lost several directors, or its auditor, in a short period, and why.
- I know who owns the company. See how to find out who owns a company.
- The company itself is real and registered. See how to check if a company is legitimate.
See a board’s record in one place
Doing all of this by hand means searching annual reports, registers and regulators one by one. InsidEntity brings the board record together in one place, as a starting point for your own review of the primary sources. The platform holds 17,000 director profiles, each setting out a director’s board seats, roles and tenure. Each company report adds the board’s past directors and auditors, alongside a Company Risk Rating that scores the board on director independence, director capacity, auditor independence and shareholder influence.
Disqualification and debarment registers are official records, so check them at source.
Search a director on InsidEntity to see their board history, or read how the Company Risk Rating works to see how each pillar is scored.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find out who the directors of a company are?
Start with the company’s annual report and its exchange announcements, which name every director and board change. Official registers such as CIPC in South Africa and Companies House in the UK list current and past appointments. InsidEntity brings each director’s board seats, roles and tenure together in one profile.
How can I check if a director has been disqualified?
Check the official registers at source: CIPC’s register of delinquent and probationary directors in South Africa, the Companies House register of disqualified directors in the UK, and in the US, SEC Action Lookup for Individuals and the relevant sector regulator.
How many boards should a director sit on?
There is no single legal limit, but capacity matters. In InsidEntity’s Company Risk Rating, the directorship-count part of Director Capacity gives full marks for one or two seats and steps down from three, reaching zero at five or more.
When does a director stop being independent?
Governance codes such as King IV and the UK Corporate Governance Code ask boards to justify a director’s independence after nine years of service. Family, business or shareholding ties to the company, or past employment there, can also affect independence.
Independent research. Not financial advice. This is general information, not legal advice. No allegation of wrongdoing is made against any individual or entity named.
Know more. Risk less. Decide better.
Sources: US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, The Role of the Board of Directors in Enron’s Collapse, July 2002; SEC Regulation S-K, Item 401(f); Companies Act 71 of 2008 (South Africa), section 162; Companies House, register of disqualified directors; Financial Sector Conduct Authority, register of debarred persons; InsidEntity Company Risk Rating methodology.
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