The traditional boardroom chair
Bonded leather executive chairs including the Advocate and Carter ranges, in high and medium back. This is the chair people picture when they picture an executive chair, and it stays popular for reasons that are practical as well as visual.
Why leather persists
It wipes clean in seconds, which matters in a room where clients are given coffee. And it signals formality without any effort, which is precisely what a boardroom chair is being asked to do.
Bonded leather gives that appearance at a fraction of the cost of full hide, which is why it dominates the contract market.
High back or medium
A high back supports the head and fills more of the room. Around a boardroom table, a row of high backs can dominate, and medium backs often photograph and feel better.
For a single director's chair behind a desk, high back is usually the intent.
Be honest about the hours
Leather does not breathe. For a chair used a few hours a week that is irrelevant; for someone at that desk all day in a warm office it becomes the reason they ask to swap it.
If the chair will do real desk hours, look at mesh executive or a proper task chair instead and let the room be impressive some other way.