JamesDruryPartners Helps The Boston Beer Company Fill Board Position

September 4, 2024 – Recruiting for boards of directors, considered the backbones of organizations, has grown markedly more challenging, say recruiters who conduct searches in that area. As a result, companies continue to turn to executive search firms to help find new board members. Chicago-headquartered JamesDruryPartners recently assisted The Boston Beer Company, Inc. with the recruitment of Joseph Jordan as a new member of its board of directors.

Mr. Jordan will serve as an independent class A director, a new seat recently added to the board, sitting on the audit committee and the compensation committee.

Mr. Jordan currently serves as president – U.S. and global services for Domino’s, a global food services chain based in Ann Arbor, MI, a position he has held since 2022. In this role, he oversees Domino’s U.S. business and key global centers of excellence. He has been with Domino’s since 2011, including as executive vice president – international from 2018 to 2022; senior vice president and chief marketing officer from 2015 to 2018; and vice president of innovation from 2011 to 2014. Prior to joining Domino’s, Mr. Jordan worked at PepsiCo North America for six years, where he last served as a senior director of marketing. Prior to that, he held marketing roles at Philips Electronics and Unilever, and was a consultant for Accenture in Washington, D.C.

“We’re pleased to welcome Joe to our board of directors,” said Boston Beer Company chairman, founder, and brewer Jim Koch. “Joe will bring impressive brand management, consumer packaged goods industry, and innovation expertise to the board.”

The Boston Beer Company began in 1984 with a generations-old family recipe that founder and brewer Mr. Koch uncovered in his father’s attic. Today, it brews more than 60 styles of beer. Although Samuel Adams beer is America’s leading craft beer, it accounts for only one percent of the U.S. beer market.

JamesDruryPartners was founded in 2001 and offers board advisory services to firms in the U.S. Its practice encompasses services that range from traditional director recruitment, board evaluation and benchmarking, director assessment, and its most innovative offering, BoardSelect, which has assisted over 200 highly-qualified executives obtain optimal corporate board positions. The firm’s family of corporate board clients span all sectors with revenues ranging from $1 billion to $225 billion, including many Fortune 50 companies.

Related: How to Approach Strategic Board Succession Planning

JamesDruryPartners also provides customized governance and board consulting services such as succession planning, skills inventory analysis, benchmarking best practices, and director training. Jim Drury is chairman, founder, and CEO of JamesDruryPartners.

Luring Directors

According to Egon Zehnder, heightened expectations now placed on boards have elevated both the professional standards and personal commitment required of all directors.


Breaking the Boardroom Glass Ceiling
For far too long, leadership positions have been less accessible for women than their male peers. This has resulted in frustrating gender imbalances across organizations’ top ranks globally—seven percent of the world’s largest companies still have all-male boards, and only 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. But despite longstanding barriers, female leadership is on the rise, according Egon Zehnder’s Global Board Diversity Tracker 2022-2023 (GBDT). At the board level, there has been steady investment in diversity, equity, and inclusion, with one in three new hires being women and 27 percent of board seats being held by female directors globally. This is the fastest pace of progress the search firm has seen since tracking these stats.


At the same time, many boards find that the supply of independent-minded “board experienced” directors – especially those who can add vital forms of specialized skills and expertise – is limited. Such candidates are widely sought but can be hesitant to take on the intensive responsibilities now required of board service.

Most in demand are women, senior leaders with global experience, ethnically diverse professionals, and millennials.

Related: U.S. Boards Seen as Slowly Evolving

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media

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