I feel like you’re purposely missing the point of what I said. I’m not saying there is no value to experience in the role, just that someone else with less experience can definitely not only meet but pass your level of competency because experience isn’t the most important factor.
You make it sound like all experience is directly transferable. Most of the experience you tout for Wickenheiser over the other two in this scenario has nothing to do with her current tasks and responsibilities and thus there is some limitation in It’s value.
Industrial experience is nearly seamlessly transferable in almost all cases; I took what I learned working for Toyota, and directly extrapolated out a lot of those practices into working for an office furniture manufacturer, vastly different in scope but key elements remain the same (and actually, allowed me to remodel some of their structure to better handle issues they hadn't anticipated - for example, I implemented a more refined Kanban system, which you can Google rather than explain on a hockey forum).
People can, over time, overtake another person with more experience through the law of declining of returns and the overall cycle of age vs. productivity (but that's a whole different conversation), but one thing that cannot happen unless you trip and fall into an absolute genius/prodigy/outlier is have someone exceed that person without the same experience (this is actually very common in family run businesses).
I do think, though, that we've bifurcated the discussion - one about Wickenheiser deserving her own promotion aside from the rest, and the other being her qualifications as an AGM and if the group has been promoted on the same basis/merit.
As to the first, I submit that even through base history, Wickenheiser has done more than any of the others, and it's not even close particular to her role.
As to the second, I think Wickenheiser is deserving of an AGM role, but I debate the others - as a result, using the old adage, "if everyone is something, no one is something". Having 5 AGM's doesn't make them AGM's, it makes them Directors with prettier titles and bigger paycheques and fancier resumes, which will help them move on to bigger and better things (which I think is by design; if Dubas gets the boot, they'll likely get the boot as well, but will have AGM on their CV).
To use another company I worked for, on the Sales side, they wanted to promote 5 Regional Managers of Sales to Vice Presidents of Sales, despite the fact that they already had two VP's of Sales.
The Plan?
To have them each become Regional Vice Presidents, which was no different than Regional Managers - same responsibilities, no one below them got a corresponding promotion and no corresponding backfill to the RM position, and the existing Vice Presidents became Senior Vice Presidents so (you guessed it) bigger titles, and paycheques, but the same job.
Why did they do it? Simply put, they wanted to pay their people more and give them fancier titles. In reality, it was gross - they give already higher-ups just more money and clout, but the people who work beneath them lose opportunities at legitimate promotions and abilities to move their own careers forward.
I guarantee there is no plan to promote any new "Directors" to these portfolios. This is all glad-handing and resumé padding, while the people who report to them see little, if any, benefit... outside of potentially keeping their job under a new regime.
