But experience also means recognising that no individual, and no board, can know everything. Boards operate in an environment where the range of issues requiring their attention continues to expand.
Artificial intelligence. Cyber risk. Regulatory change. Geopolitical uncertainty. Digital assets. Operational resilience. New technologies and business models. The answer cannot simply be for every director to become an expert in everything.
One of the most valuable capabilities of an effective board may be something different: Intellectual Curiosity.
The confidence to recognise the limits of collective knowledge and keep asking questions beyond what is already known.
There is an interesting parallel with a concept developed more than 70 years ago. In 1955, psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham developed the Johari Window, a model exploring self-awareness and the relationship between what is known to ourselves and others.
It wasn't designed as a model of corporate governance, and the comparison isn't exact. But its underlying principle provides an interesting lens for board knowledge: what we know is only part of the picture, and our own perspective may not reveal everything.
Applied more broadly to the boardroom, that principle prompts a slightly different set of questions. There are things the board knows. There are things the board knows it doesn't know. There are things it may not yet have considered. And there will always be things it doesn't yet know. None of those is a criticism of the board. They are simply a consequence of governing in an environment that continues to change.
The interesting question is what an effective board does about it.
A recognised knowledge gap can prompt further information, discussion or assurance. The board can draw upon management, its administrator, company secretary, legal, auditors and other specialists.
But good governance can go further than responding to the questions already on the table.
It can remain curious enough to ask: What haven't we considered? What assumptions are we making? What has changed? Is there another perspective? Who knows more about this than we do? What additional information would help us reach a better-informed conclusion? And perhaps the simplest question of all: What don't we know?
Asking that question isn't an admission of weakness. It may be a sign of a confident board.
On Wednesday, we'll look at how experience, expertise, information, constructive challenge and intellectual curiosity can work together to help boards ask better questions.