Cover Story

‘We’ve got an incredible board’:
The Tupperware brand of governance
Interview with Rick Goings
The Tupperware Brands chairman and CEO champions the value that directors can add … as long as there is no crowding out of the board agenda what their top priority should be — to grow the company. ‘We need to rethink the whole process of how boards ensure growth.’

Features

Boards: Build back, and build better
By Paul Otellini
A director’s obligation is to take the long look ahead and invest for the future to ensure that your company, and your country, is an engine of new ideas and competitive leadership. Intel’s billion-dollar bets.

A director’s 5 rules
for difficult times
By Blythe McGarvie
Courage and confidence come from more than just keeping a close eye on cash flow. Other touchstones: market share, board diversity, and the CEO’s ‘worldview’ — ‘the most critical reference point to learn.’

Directors A, B, and C: Independent? Yes… no … maybe … maybe not!
By Phil Lochner
The NYSE director independence rules come to conclusions that other reasonable minds might differ with. Where to draw the lines on conflicts and relationships? And, are these rules enough?

Does your board need a risk committee?
By W. Neil Eggleston and David C. Ware
The benefits can be compelling, but creating a board-level risk committee can itself be risky business. Certain factors deserve particular attention in weighing whether to take such a step.

Boards as overseers of human capital
By Edward E. Lawler III
Improvement is needed: this was true before the recession, and even truer now. What actions should be taken. Also, consultant Frank DiBernardino and board member Jacqueline Kane weigh in on the author’s thesis.

A high-performance team: Identify, please
By Howard Guttmann
The author asked three in-the-know executives what they would advise directors to look for in their top management team. Also, the value of unfettered dialogue, Alfred P. Sloan-style, in a team’s success.

Book it: Best bets for board reading
From a roundup of new books, leadership insights on succession planning, finding your big idea, board-CEO decision making, developing esprit de corps, and facing the ‘impossible’ scenario in getting a deal done.

Endnote: ‘Where was the board?’ Where was I?
By Richard Salomon
A director puts that question to himself when he and his fellow board members have to put a company into Chapter 11.

Departments & Columns

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