‘Boards That Excel’ by B. Joseph White

Ed. Note: A tradition in the Governance Year in Review issue of Directors & Boards is the selection of a Governance Book of the Year. Honoree for 2014 is Boards That Excel: Candid Insights and Practical Advice for Directors by B. Joseph White. Dr. White has a distinguished resume: he chairs the corporate governance committee of Equity Residential, an S&P 500 company; he is a director of one of America’s largest private companies, Gordon Food Service; he is an academic leader with the University of Illinois, where he is the James F. Towey Professor of Business and Leadership and president emeritus, and is also dean and professor emeritus at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan; and he is an experienced nonprofit board member and chairman. He was a keynote speaker at the 2014 Private Company Governance Summit (PCGS), produced by Directors & Boards, and he returned as a key speaker on “Boards and Strategy” at the 2015 PCGS. Boards That Excel was published in August 2014 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc. This excerpt is printed with permission of the publisher.

A board’s most important responsibility is to appoint the organizations’ chief executive officer. This decision, more than any other, will affect the success of the enterprise and reflect on the judgment of the board.

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