Choosing directors, employees

Murphy, as team president, picks new board members from among the candidates recommended by the board’s director affairs committee.

The 40-plus board members serve on committees, such as director affairs, marketing and others, and meet four or five times a year to consider team business.

Primary responsibility for running the team’s non-football operations is concentrated in the seven-member executive committee. It sets policy for the Packers and keeps watch over the administrative side of the organization. It meets monthly or more often if needed.

Murphy said the Packers formalized how the director affairs committee operates so that it focuses on a variety of attributes. Relevant skills are foremost, but ethnicity, gender and geography are also important factors.

“Mark sets the tone as far as wanting to consider diverse candidates who are qualified,” said Tom Olson, who just retired as lead director. Olson served on the director affairs committee for eight years.

“When you have a board as large as ours, you have room,” Olson said. “You can look for a wide range of skills, ethnicity, gender, race. I know the committee does that.”

Different perspectives based on experience are important to the organization, he said.

“You have to remember that our fan base is also very diverse,” Olson said. “To have people who reflect that is important.”

For the Packers to put Finco and then Anderson on the executive committee breaks new ground for the 102-year-old organization.

“Women are decision makers, often the financial decision makers in families,” Finco said. “There are certainly more women sports fans than ever before, so having that perspective is really important. People look at things differently depending on where they come from.”

Finco said geographic diversity also is important. Anderson is the first director from the Madison area, Murphy said. Several are from Milwaukee. The number of directors from outside Brown County is set by the team’s bylaws at between five and 15. The Packers tend to be closer to 15.