We examine the impact of increasing levels of concentrated founder ownership on board independence and extend the knowledge by exploring whether the impact of concentrated founder ownership on board independence varies with firm's life cycle stages, ownership identity, level of external monitoring and type of firms. Using the Indian sample of 13,636 firm-year observations for the period 2001–2015, we find that controlling shareholders influence the board structure and exhibit a non-monotonic relationship. The relationship moves from entrenchment to alignment and again to entrenchment as their shareholding increases. We find that Indian controlling shareholders influence board independence more than their foreign counterparts. We show that business group firms are associated with greater board independence than standalone firms. We also show that controlling shareholders influence board independence of the firm in the growth stage. Our findings support the notion that the effect of concentrated ownership changes with its level of ownership, identity, firm life cycle stages, level of external monitoring and type of firms.