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Refreshing the Board and the Executive Suite After the CrisisIssue: 2020 Annual ReportOnce the pandemic calms and corporations have moved from business triage back to strategies for future growth, there’s no doubt that the decisions and actions of company leadership and the board will be scrutinized. Was the CEO an effective leader? Did the board fulfill its duties as an adviser to t...
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ESG: Before, During and After the CrisisIssue: 2020 Annual ReportEnvironmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have largely focused on the “E” and the “G” because those are more easily defined. But any directors have struggled to explain what the “S” really means and how social issues can be measured. But these issues have now been pushed to the forefront in ...
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Risk Management After COVID-19Issue: 2020 Annual ReportWhile many boards were not prepared for all that happened this Spring, others have been working on robust business continuity plans for years. They may not have accounted for the confluence of crises that would affect society and the economy at once, but they were prepared for disruption by beefing ...
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Top of MindIssue: 2020 Annual ReportI spent 18 years as a CIO in manufacturing and then became a CIO in the banking industry. But very seldom have CIOs risen to the chair and CEO position. I think that’s because they tend to focus on technology instead of business. I’ve always taken the business approach first. Everything starts with ...
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Four Principles of Risk ManagementIssue: 2020 Annual ReportStrong enterprise risk management is an imperative in the 21st century in a flattening world with growing complexity, the global movement of people and arguably more frequent disruptions and disasters. Organizations must match the evolution of strategies and operating models to mitigate potentially ...
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Revisiting IndependenceIssue: 2020 Annual ReportOne of the pillars of corporate law is the directors’ fiduciary duty of loyalty to the corporation and its shareholders. In general, the duty of loyalty requires that a director, in making decisions, act on a disinterested and independent basis, in good faith, with an honest belief that the action i...
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Compensation Matters: At Your DiscretionIssue: 2020 Annual ReportThe coronavirus pandemic gave the global economy an unprecedented shock that has raised the stakes for one of the compensation committee’s most challenging tasks — determining when and how to apply discretion to adjust executives’ incentive pay for circumstances outside their control.The question of...
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Editor's Note: Trading in Textbooks for NewspapersIssue: 2020 Annual ReportI think that a few words of introduction and guidance are in order. I have been a regular contributor and, more importantly, a reader and devotee of Directors & Boards for the past 25 years. I firmly believe that this publication has been, is now, and will continue to be the thought leader in co...
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Publisher's Letter: Jobs Offer HopeIssue: 2020 Annual Report“Joblessness leads to hopelessness, [and] hopelessness leads to what we see in the streets,” observed Merck’s CEO Ken Frazier, who emphasized the role of Black unemployment in exacerbating the social unrest sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. Maintaining that business has the means to eli...
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2020 Private Boards of the Year Award Winners AnnouncedSix private company boards will be honored for their business governance excellence at the upcoming 2020 Private Company Governance Summit on September 15-17, 2020, live online.The boards of these companies were selected for recognition:David S. Lapine Company, Inc.The Hussey Seating CompanyDraper a...
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My Board Journey: PAUL E. ROWSEY, Director, Valaris plc. Chairman, JLB Partners LLCIssue: 2020 Annual Report...
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We’ve Come a Long Way, But We Aren’t Home YetIssue: 2020 Annual ReportEight years. Women have had the right to vote for 100 years, but it took eight years from the suffragettes first petitions to make it happen.The strategies of suffragettes included pageants staged on the steps of the Treasury Building in Washington to hunger strikes. President Woodrow Wilson was pic...
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An Inflection Point for Stakeholder CapitalismFrom the Business Roundtable to BlackRock, there’s growing pressure on companies to respect all major stakeholders — employees, customers, suppliers and local communities, as well as investors. Meanwhile, a variety of innovations are effectively making these stakeholders central to long-term company...
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DIRECTORS TO WATCH: Gender Diversity in the BoardroomIssue: 2020 Annual ReportBy Scott ChaseLast July’s presentation of our Directors to Watch Class of 2019, profiling 22 superlative women directors, occurred just days after the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz issued a memo citing “board diversity and expanding the pool” as a top priority for publicly traded compa...
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Revisiting IndependenceOne of the pillars of corporate law is the directors’ fiduciary duty of loyalty to the corporation and its shareholders. In general, the duty of loyalty requires that a director, in making decisions, act on a disinterested and independent basis, in good faith, with an honest belief that the action i...
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At Your DiscretionWhen and how should directors adjust executive incentive payouts?The coronavirus pandemic gave the global economy an unprecedented shock that has raised the stakes for one of the compensation committee’s most challenging tasks — determining when and how to apply discretion to adjust executives’ ince...
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Beyond gender diversityIssue: 2020 Annual ReportAs board leaders strive for greater diversity among their members, the conversation often focuses on gender. While there are a variety of reasons for attention on gender balance, other aspects of diversity — such as race and ethnic background — also are beneficial in the boardroom. Diversity o...
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COVID-19: A Catalyst for Change“None of what we are going through is comfortable, or fair. And while things will likely get worse before they get better, has America, perhaps, just gotten the wake-up call it needed to get to a better place?” asks Mary Meeker in her recent “Coronavirus Trends Report.”As board members, there are cl...
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How Vigilant Firms Will Prevail When 'Coronachaos' SubsidesVigilant firms are better prepared to absorb the shocks from “Coronachaos” and emerge stronger when the pandemic abates. Firms like Agilent, Intuit, Sysco and Amazon have the leadership orientation, economic resources, managerial talent and organizational capabilities needed to seize emerging opport...
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“Being Black in Corporate America” Deserves a ResponseAuthor’s Note: This piece was prepared before the death of George Floyd and the protests and important public discussions that followed. If anything, it is even more relevant now.The Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) recently released a study entitled “Being Black in Corporate America.” The finding...