Editing Board of directors (section)

===Terminology {{anchor|Classification}}===
*''Director'' – a person appointed to serve on the board of an organization, such as an institution or business.
*''Inside director'' – a director who, in addition to serving on the board, has a meaningful connection to the organization
*''[[Outside director]]'' – a director who, other than serving on the board, has no meaningful connections to the organization
*''Executive director'' – an inside director who is also an executive with the organization. The term is also used, in a completely different sense, to refer to a CEO
*''[[Non-executive director]]'' – a director (inside or outside) who is not an executive with the organization
*''De facto director'' – an individual who acts as a director of the company but has not actually or validly been appointed as such.
*''Shadow director'' – an individual who acts as a director of the company but is not a named director (a ''de jure'' director) and does not claim or purport to act as director.
* ''Nominee director'' – an individual who is appointed by a shareholder, creditor or interest group (whether contractually or by resolution at a company meeting) and who has a continuing loyalty to the appointors or other interest in the appointing company

Individual directors often serve on more than one board.<ref name="Businessdictionary">{{Cite web |title=Executive Director |url=http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/executive-director.html |access-date=24 May 2013 |website=Business Dictionary |archive-date=28 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130628140202/http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/executive-director.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> This practice results in an [[interlocking directorate]], where a relatively small number of individuals have significant influence over many important entities. This situation can have important corporate, social, economic, and legal consequences, and has been the subject of significant research.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lamb |first=Nai Hua |date=2017 |title=Does the Number of Interlocking Directors Influence a Firm's Financial Performance? An Exploratory Meta-Analysis |url=http://t.www.na-businesspress.com/AJM/LambN_Web17_2_.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://t.www.na-businesspress.com/AJM/LambN_Web17_2_.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |journal=American Journal of Management |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=47–57 |doi=10.33423/ajm.v17i2.1757 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |access-date=2019-07-24}}</ref>