For directors, it’s essential to understand a company’s finances and anticipate
Success with sustainability requires directors to drive bold action in a decisi
The practice will only grow as disclosure of climate-related data becomes more
Advanced preparation and optimal board personnel are key if you want to avoid a
There is now more flexibility for Delaware corporations to delegate equity awar
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick M. Shanahan joins Leidos board of directors
Leidos, a defense, aviation, information technology and biomedical research company, headquartered in Reston, Va., appointed Patrick M. Shanah to it Board. He served as the 33rd United States Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2017 to 2019…
Surprisingly, many private company boards pay little attention to perhaps their most important function, maximizing realized shareholder value. Despite their legal and fiduciary responsibility to exercise this function, boards often fail to give it much attention. My experience from serving on 14 different boards is that this issue is seldom even on the agenda!
In an environment of increasing global competition, constant technological innovation, and greater shareholder activism, public company CEOs who partner with hands-on, active board members can better drive equity value creation.
Directors & Boards presents its seventh annual ranking of top law firms specializing in corporate governance issues. These rankings represent the unaided (“fill in the blank”) responses from 208 respondents to our legal services survey, which was conducted in November 2014.
Innovation is the lifeblood of high-growth, private companies. With a three-to-five-year time horizon to major growth inflection points, these companies must aggressively pursue strategies in all aspects of business. Boards must support innovation efforts not only in product development but also in sales and marketing (e.g., the implementation of social media engagement to reach and retain customers), finance, and all other areas across an organization.
Innovation is one of the hottest topics in global business today. Everyone and every company is striving to be “more innovative.” The role and focus of the board in innovation can vary dramatically with the nature of the company it oversees:
• In high-growth entrepreneurial companies, boards often view their role as guiding innovation. Typically they are seeking to enforce more accountability and discipline in a highly entrepreneurial company — without dampening the innovative spirit that lies at the heart of the corporate culture.
Boards everywhere are asking what they should be doing about cybersecurity. Ensuring the adequacy of a company’s cybersecurity program is a critical part of a director’s risk oversight responsibilities, yet most board members may not be as familiar with the components of a cybersecurity program as they are with operational and financial issues.
One of your greatest strengths is also your greatest vulnerability. That is the dichotomy inherent in the rapid rise of mobile devices in the enterprise: they simultaneously present significant opportunity for business transformation and the most daunting information-security risk.
It’s a good problem to have: Generating and holding record levels of cash — as many companies are today — creates more investment options. But in a period of weak global economic growth and low interest rates, it also means tougher decisions and greater scrutiny of the company’s use of capital. Pay dividends? Repurchase stock? Make a strategic acquisition? Invest in organic growth?
As readers of this journal know, the case of Revlon v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, one of the foundational cases of Delaware corporate law, stands for the proposition that when the sale or breakup of a company is inevitable, the obligations of the board shift from a focus on long-term strategy to instead seeking the best price reasonably available for the stockholders.
