I agree. Often overlooked is that not all qualifications directly relate to "running the company": relationships with people who hold high-level positions in ot

I agree. Often overlooked is that not all qualifications directly relate to "running the company": relationships with people who hold high-level positions in other companies, governments, academic institutions, and other organizations also play a role. Executive and director biography pages for large public companies always make entertaining reading. To take just one random, high-profile example: David Ebersman, Facebook's CFO, while by all accounts a knowledgable and hard-working guy, was also the protégé of one Arthur Levinson, chairman of the board of Apple. This is the kind of thing that may be totally unimportant to Facebook's day-to-day operations, but that could also be very useful at some unknown point in the future (when negotiating to integrate Facebook products into as-yet-unreleased versions of Apple's mobile OS, say). Investors also pay attention to "who's who" in the executive suite, which is important to many companies.