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How Tweeting by a PwC Partner During the Oscars Sullied PwC’s Reputation and Offers Lessons for Distracted Board Members

Feb 28

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership, Information, Resources and Reporting, IT Governance, Meetings and Decision-Making | Comments Off on How Tweeting by a PwC Partner During the Oscars Sullied PwC’s Reputation and Offers Lessons for Distracted Board Members

PwC partner, Brian Cullinan, evidently was tweeting backstage moments before he handed the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty, resulting in reputational damage for PwC in its assurance role over award envelopes and the announcing of the wrong award for Best Picture.

Social media use can become an addiction, and can compromise not only reputation, but decision-making as well.

The most common complaint I have during my reviews of boards of directors’ performance is distracted directors. I see distracted directors in boardrooms and distracted students in classrooms all the time. More leadership and common sense is needed by board chairs and professors.

I was auditing a graduate university class recently, and most of the students were on their laptops, typing away, apparently oblivious to the lecture occurring in front of them. Their eyes were not on the professor or their colleagues. They were not engaged in the moment. This is like directors looking at iPads and laptops during the board meeting instead of each other.

I stopped the class and asked what the point was that the professor had just made. No one could answer. I instructed all students to close their laptops and discontinue all technology for the remainder of the class. Further, students were not to consult any notes and stay in the moment for the entire class.

In another board meeting, the board chair was obsessively using his cellphone during the board meeting. When I walk around boardrooms and classrooms, I see directors and students typing, answering emails, texting, using social media – in other words, not doing their job.

The laptop creates a physical and psychological barrier. It also takes two hands to type, as opposed to one hand to write.

Certain Toronto high-schools announced a few days ago that they are banning cellphones from classrooms. Hospitals and courtrooms also ban the use of cellphones.

The answer for boardrooms and classrooms is not to ban technology, but rather to use technology to enhance individual and meeting performance, not diminish it.

You are four times as likely to be distracted when you use technology. Studies show that retention increases when notes are taken the old-fashioned way, on paper, rather than on a computer. Technology does not necessarily enhance performance; indeed, studies show it may diminish it.

If you are prepared for class or a for board meeting, there is no need for any technology, or very many notes for that matter. The use of technology, including PowerPoint slides, can be a safety blanket or used to manipulate your audience. If a person reads PowerPoint slides, chances are they are unprepared, and further, you have a weak board chair or weak professor.

A great board – management discussion or presentation can occur without any technology whatsoever. Think of twenty years ago when this technology did not exist. Some of the best discussions that I have moderated and witnessed in boardrooms and classrooms do not include any technology.

What is the answer for boards of directors and classrooms, and the use of technology?

• Resist the use of technology simply because it is available. The litmus test for technology is performance.
• Lay down the rule if you are the board chair or professor: No technology unless it is directly related to the meeting. And lead by example.
• Make sure all discussions, agendas and information are relevant, to respect your audience’s time, and resist their temptation to be distracted.
• Insist on full preparation and focus on the discussion. The discussion is where the learning and important decisions get made.
• Have students submit 2-page summaries of the readings at the start of class, to validate their preparation.
• The foregoing would be draconian for directors, but it is blindingly obvious to directors who is prepared for the meeting and who is not. Have a system to enforce preparation.
• Insist on peer assessment of directors and students.
• Make sure that you can see someone’s eyes. If you cannot see their eyes, chances are they are distracted.
• Take frequent breaks to use technology for personal purposes.
• Insist on in-person meetings to the fullest extent possible.
• Self-police any errant director or student who cannot comply with the above.
• Most of all, lead by example.

Dr. Richard Leblanc, Editor of The Handbook of Board Governance (Wiley, 2016), can be reached at rleblanc@boardexpert.com.

The Problem with Independent Directors

Nov 7

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership, Independence and Role Clarity | Comments Off on The Problem with Independent Directors

“The Board Chair is owned by the CEO,” directors told me after I was called in by the regulator to assess the board. The Chair owned a condo next to the CEO and was a close personal friend. I have not assessed a board when there was not at least one director, and oftentimes, after governance failure, several directors who are viewed as non-independent by their fellow directors, even though these directors are independent by regulatory standards.

Academics have never been able to show that independent directors strengthen company performance for one major reason: true independence is not being measured from the outside, and can readily be undermined by clever, self-serving management and directors themselves by allowing it to occur. Bright-line independence tests or rules can be out-smarted, and many fail to capture the underlying conflicts of interests.

In my research involving shareholder activists, activists tell me how they investigate director backgrounds to show the compromising of independence. Activists’ inherent presumption is that each director is non-independent to begin with. They are put in place by management or other directors, not shareholders.

Here are the ways directorial independence is compromised, before or after a director begins to serve: a close social or personal relationship with another director or member of management; serving on another board or in another business relationship with a director; excessive tenure on the board; excessive director pay or expenses; an office at the company for the director; the use of secretarial staff; gifts such as cigars; vacations with other directors, a significant shareholder, or management; jobs or contracts for acquaintances or referrals of the director; lunches, dinners, entertainment or sporting events with a small group of directors and management (rather than collective board dinners); informal collaborating in a decision by a board or committee chair with management in advance of the meeting; boards or committees not hiring independent advisors but are beholden exclusively on management; directors taking advantage of a corporate opportunity, resource or perquisite with full knowledge (or not) of other directors; or having a bias towards a particular stakeholder in board deliberations (including a significant shareholder).

There exists pressure on Canadian directors to allow their independence to become diluted, directors tell me, and to be collegial in this dilution. I have interviewed some of the top board chairs in Canada, and one of their major concerns was the “slippery slope” of directorial independence. I have found that directors can become less independent, but I have never found them to become more independent. Boards, in theory at least, should decide what degree, if any, of independence slippage (see all of the above real examples) they are willing to tolerate.

If one or more directors has their independence compromised, particularly a board or a committee chair, then governance failure can and does occur. Conflict-seeking directors are toxic to a board and should be removed. Directors know which director(s) has lost their independence. By the time I arrive, I am confirming what they already know and failed to act upon. A trained outside expert can readily observe captured directors during board meetings, interviews and customized questions.

Why is There a Director Independence Dis-connect?

If director independence is compromised and regulatory standards fail to detect this, then the regulators have failed. It should not be possible, if regulators are doing their job, to have a director who is not independent, inside the boardroom, and at the same time that director complies with independence guidelines outside the boardroom.

What is the Standard for Independence of Public Company Directors in Canada?

Directorial independence in Canada is presently a subjective standard (what directors believe), rather than an objective one (what is reasonable to believe). This means that if directors collectively believe that a director does not have a “material” relationship that can reasonably be “expected” to “interfere” with that director’s independent judgment, then that is the end of the analysis. The absence of an objective, reasonable or perceived point of view is anomalous when it comes to overseeing conflicts of interest in the workplace, so why should boards be any different? What should matter is what is reasonable, not what a director or a board believes. This subjective view can be unreasonable.

How Can Director Independence Be Strengthened?

Director independence is important because independent directors control management. It is important to get independence right – in theory at least – but also in practice if directors are to possess independence of mind coming onto the board and maintain it once they are on.

Here are some reforms I recommend and use to address director and board independence:

  • Regulatory reform should occur so independence of directors espoused by regulators equates with actual independence inside boardrooms. An objective, reasonable person standard should be used.
  • Boards should enact a robust conflict of interest policy, for directors, not drafted by management, and this policy should be disclosed to shareholders.
  • Independent advisors should facilitate an annual peer review of director independence, as is done in the United Kingdom. The review process should be disclosed and acted upon.
  • Codes of conduct should be drafted (not by management) to apply to a board of directors. Boards should not be using the company code because director independence issues are not captured.
  • Boards (and if not, regulators) should impose reasonable term limits on director tenure, beyond which the director is not regarded as independent, as is done in several countries.
  • Boards should require the confidential disclosure of directorial perceived conflicts (including assets and financial information relevant to the company’s business) to the audit committee, including that of family and affiliates of the director.
  • Audit committees should review and recommend to the board perceived conflicts of interest by directors, and should create a special committee of independent directors who are independent of the matter and the director, if and when required, with independent advisors retained by the audit or special committee.
  • An anonymous procedure for reporting on directors who do not disclose potential conflicts should exist, to the audit or special committee.
  • The governance committee should recommend independent board and committee chairs, and the board chair should be selected by confidential ballot without the CEO being present or unduly influencial.
  • For significant shareholder boards, independent directors should be chosen by and from minority shareholders, so a portion of directors are independent of the significant shareholder, commensurate with the significant shareholder’s portion of common shares.
  • For widely held boards, shareholders should select a portion of directors so directors are independent of each other and management.
  • Boards should disclose the origination of each director, namely how that director came to be recommended for election by shareholders.
  • Boards (and if not, regulators) should diversify themselves so directors do not come from the same homogenous pool and are independent from one another.

Dr. Richard Leblanc, Editor of The Handbook of Board Governance (Wiley, 2016), can be reached at rleblanc@boardexpert.com.

 

CEO Coaching: Lessons from the Trenches

Aug 27

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership, Board-CEO Relations, CEO Succession Planning, CEO, Organizational Performance and Compensation | Comments Off on CEO Coaching: Lessons from the Trenches

Alcohol problems, drug use, sexual misconduct, financial misconduct, defensiveness, denial, berating of other senior management and directors, litigation, loss of key employees, toxicity and bulling. There is not much I have not seen when I am called in to coach the CEO. And CEO misbehavior happens in the highest level of corporate Canada. You may be surprised, but I am not.

Here are ten recent examples, disguised for confidentiality purposes: The CEO called a CFO a “moron” in front of the board and finance staff. Another CEO went silent, not talking to the Board Chair for a month. A CEO sat, arms folded, and did not say a word during an entire board meeting. A fourth CEO coaching regime occurred after a major failure, involving death and property destruction. A fifth CEO coaching was of a large manufacturing company, where the CEO’s effect on board colleagues was highly disruptive. In a seventh example, the CEO’s behavior was so disruptive that a major board rift occurred. An eighth example involved loss of key staff and an investigation into CEO conduct. A ninth example involved a CEO deliberately blocking board access to a potential successor and silencing of other senior management, from the board. A tenth example was a CEO of an iconic Canadian company shielding his compensation and expense arrangements from all directors, until I was called in by a regulator to investigate.

By the time I am called in, much of the damage has been done. But it doesn’t need to be this way.

The board’s most important job is hiring, paying and firing the CEO. Boards can get all of corporate governance wrong, but hire the right CEO, and be successful. Boards can hire the wrong CEO, and the company will fail even if the board has high governance scores.

The question that boards, prior to my coaching, often have for me is “Can the CEO change?” There are two things that are needed to change: awareness of the deficiency, and a willingness to change. I am optimistic, and usually have coaching success, but in a few instances, the CEO would not or could not change and I recommended firing the CEO.

Here are lessons for CEO coaching for any board:

The CEO’s coach is always hired by, and accountable to, the Board Chair and the Governance Committee, not the CEO.

For CEO coaching to work, the coach should understand board dynamics and report directly to the Board Chair, not the CEO. The Coach reports on coaching sessions, developmental plans, deliverables and progress, candidly and thoroughly, without the CEO present.

Prospective CEOs should be thoroughly vetted.

Normally, people’s personalities are stable, and the warning signs were visible long before the CEO was hired. A wrong CEO hire is always the board’s fault. Proper vetting now includes detailed resume checks, reference checks, professional background checks, social media and profile checks, personality testing against culture, exposure to all Directors, and multiple interviews in different settings, using external assistance. Put rigor and independence behind the CEO hire, base it on the strategic plan, and conduct an external search if only to test the market. Boards then make the mistake of not working closely with the new CEO after hire, and not onboarding them.

Collect your data and listen to employees.

CEO evaluation should always be 360 degrees, and include a board line of sight to views of direct reports in an anonymous fashion. Employee surveys should not be funneled by management, but should occur anonymously, reporting right into the boardroom. There are even software programs now that will collect employee meta-data for boards so bad news rises.

Link CEO behavior to pay incentives.

Frequently, I find the CEO has little incentive to change, as most of the pay metrics are financial and short-term in nature. In CEO coaching assignments, I normally restructure the CEO’s pay package to include non-financial metrics such as leadership, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, company culture, CEO succession planning, and/or board relations, or a combination of the above. Indeed, now, 75% of the value of a company are leading intangible measurements, such as the ones I mention, so pay metrics should reflect this. People behave the way you pay them. Boards often make the mistake of incentivizing aggressive, even unethical behavior. CEO pay should be tied explicitly, unambiguously, to ethical conduct.

Have the tough conversation with the CEO early on.

In two recent board meetings, I had to ask both CEOs to leave the room. The conversation completely changes when this happens. A board talks about CEO performance openly. When the CEO is called back into the meeting, there is a message delivered to the CEO by the Board Chair. The message is that the Board wants the CEO to succeed, and that behavioural and leadership issues need to be addressed. The CEO has to receive this message, the board needs to be aligned, and the executive session without management is the first step. Executive sessions should occur at each and every single board and committee meeting. To this day, remarkably, there are still CEOs who do not leave board meetings. The last thing a dominant or misbehaving CEO wants to do (and many CEOs are type As) is to leave the room.

Craft the CEO contract properly.

The person advising on the CEO contract should not be the company lawyer, nor the law firm that advises management. These people have a vested interest in not making the CEO contract hard-hitting. Firing a CEO “for cause” should be defined and broader than fraud. Just as athletes and entertainers have morals clauses in their contracts, CEOs should as well. The reputational, morale, talent and financial damage from CEO misconduct, to the company and to Directors, can be significant. Misconduct should be properly drafted to include ethical and professional conduct, with a defined process to determine whether a CEO is ever offside, with which the Board and CEO agree.

Engage in CEO succession planning and be prepared to fire the CEO.

There is a direct relationship between CEO leverage over a board and the lack of CEO succession planning by that board. CEO behaviours can get worse when the Board has no immediate or near-ready CEO successor.

In one major company, I detected defensiveness by the CEO and disrespect of certain directors. I found out that the CEO refused coaching, and that the board was four years out from an internal candidate being CEO-ready. “This is your failure as a board,” I said. The CEO is taking advantage of you because you have no options.

Conclusion

Some of the country’s best CEOs have had personal coaching, and that has contributed directly to their and the company’s success. No one is perfect, and we all benefit from one-on-one feedback, peer assessment, mentoring, and motivating coaches and trainers. Boards should see CEO coaching as a wise investment, and in the longer-term so old habits do not return.

Richard Leblanc is a governance consultant, lawyer, academic, speaker and advisor to leading boards of directors. His recent book is entitled The Handbook of Board Governance. Dr. Leblanc can be reached at rleblanc@boardexpert.com or followed on Twitter @drrleblanc.

Advice to Boards: Renew Your Directors or Shareholders May Do It For You

Jul 4

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership, Member Selection, Competencies and Commitment | Comments Off on Advice to Boards: Renew Your Directors or Shareholders May Do It For You

Here is a top 10 list reflecting forty recent director and executive interviews and ongoing advice and assessment provided to activist investors and boards.

Infuse your board with a shareholder mindset and directors with value creation track records

“Too many service providers” … “with no industry experience” … “who have not run anything” and “who lack value creation experience” go silent when tough business decisions need to be made, directors say. They “cannot provide the hard core insights to the management team” other than “be careful.” They default to process, “flavors of the day,” and recency, rather than leading substance and strategy. Directors and executives describe such formally independent but experientially lacking directors as “immature,” “provincial,” and “naïve.” Management is more critical: They “lack depth” and “contribute nothing.” Trying to get them off the board, in the words of one director, is like “pulling teeth.”

Remove over-tenured directors and ensure committee chair rotation

Long-serving legacy directors and committee chairs are described as “tired” and “complacent” by fellow directors who have been there “much too long,” and block renewal efforts when “they are the most conflicted.” Research suggests that directors beyond nine years diminish shareholder value. Tough discussions are occurring in boardrooms. Conflicted directors should leave the room during the discussion, directors say. Long-serving directors are loath to give directorships up, arguing they are different. Fellow directors and investors are increasingly unpersuaded by self-interest.

Conduct an independent performance review

One answer, according to head of corporate governance at CalSTRS Anne Sheehan who served on a recent panel discussion with me, is to have independent director performance reviews, with expectations set at the outset, and link the results to renewal. Don’t rely on retirement age as a performance proxy. Directors and regulators are mandating independent reviews. Blockage by self-serving chairs and directors are increasingly falling onto deaf ears. The review should have consequences, which means removing directors who have outlived their usefulness. “Rigorous evaluation,” consistently is a theme in my interviews. If a board blocks independent critical review, or does not act on the results, investors will step into the gap, and it will be far more consequential, costly and adverse.

Engage directly with investors on board performance and composition

What investors want to see now is recent, relevant, validated industry experience contributing directly to the company’s value creation chain, by each and every director. If a board cannot lead a value creation model that is endorsed by major investors, including capital and asset allocation and performance, and what each director’s contribution is to that, the board is vulnerable. Few boards have conducted this internal review with the rigor that an activist does. Camera-ready boards are having structured meetings with long-term shareholders to listen, learn and act. Boards ignore investors at their peril.

Address director origination and its impact on independence

Assume that investors will ferret out any and all conflicts, including friendships. If a director has previous or current relationships, to each other or to management, they lack independence and will not ask tough questions, new research suggests, unlike directors who are recruited primarily on the basis of merit who are unknown previously to the board. These directors are “owned” is the common refrain. Current examples include reciprocity, favours and capture. These directors cannot push back as the cost is too great. They are part of management. Therefore, boards need to rid themselves of these directors and discontinue recruiting based on prior relationships.

Diversify your board to add value

Make sure your board is diverse, and underpinned by the skill sets needed. Many companies do not have board diversity policies. Defensive, perfunctory policies are not useful. The best policies are prescriptive, have measureable objectives, and define diversity, with increasing numbers that a board holds itself responsible for meeting and on which progress is reported. There are measureable objectives for gender, age, ethnicity that align with the company, its business, its industry, and the markets in which it operates.

Focus on company performance over governance box-ticking

Governance has been a cottage industry dominated by self-serving professional advisors and associations, many directors and investors have told me. The pendulum as swung so far, such that investor performance is either entirely absent or an afterthought rather than the primary focus. “You can tick all the governance boxes, and underperform your peers,” one director states. So-called governance awarded companies have even been rife with corruption. Conversely, you can have many governance boxes unticked and perform for investors. Good boards do not let the governance tail wag the performance dog. Investors want performance, not governance accolades. We know that governance rating agencies and proxy advisory firms have metrics that lack prescriptive validity. We see award-winning companies who have failed in their performance, subsequently being attacked by activists with share price appreciation soon following. Activists are unimpressed, and, increasingly, the governance community is questioning its own focus and priorities. One award winning company with a director who has seen the activist light remarked that his board could be “10 times stronger.”

Conduct a thorough transparent director competency review, and act on the results

The director competency matrix belongs to investors and directors, not management. A matrix can be back-doored and manipulated, resulting in a complacent board. An inclusive, dynamic, objective, peer-to-peer, validated matrix review will generate development opportunities, remove directors who are lacking, and generate desired skills in the next directors. Regulators are calling for curriculum vitaes, interviews, and want to see each director is fit for purpose. Boards are wise to ensure that matrix design and administration is expert, free from management control, and reflects investor input.

Focus on softer director attributes

Skills I have recently developed for directors include: integrity, teamwork, communication and commitment. If only one director does not possess these, a board can be poisoned. These attributes can and should be recruited for and validated. A director who is lacking and cannot improve should be promptly replaced. The best boards are embarking on this review.

Display leadership and integrity

Lastly, ultimately, board renewal is about leadership and integrity. The Board Chair position is rapidly maturing. Directors who dig in and entrench are placing their own interests ahead of those of the company, resulting in grave disquiet. This is an integrity issue. Entrenched directors should do the right thing when it is time to go. Activism has become mainstream and shareholders may have much greater power in the future than they do now to propose effective and remove ineffective directors, if directors do not do it themselves.

Richard Leblanc: Ten Corporate Governance Trends for 2014

Jan 13

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership, Shareholder Accountability | Comments Off on Richard Leblanc: Ten Corporate Governance Trends for 2014

1.         Active owners focused on performance. Expect pressure by activists and institutions for boards to control under-performing management to continue unabated. Boards incapable or unwilling to rein in inefficiencies, improper capital allocation, asset mismanagement, or operational improvements will be targets. Directors whose skills do not support value creation; and ossification, complacency and atrophy more broadly, will also be targets.

2.         Shareholder accountability: Expect greater direct communication between boards and major shareholders, with “listening” mode and restricted management access continuing. Look also for pressure on asset owners themselves, by investee companies, for engagement transparency, protocols and disclosure. Expect proxy access demands by investors to continue; management and retained advisor resistance to it; and potential regulation enabling it in the future.

3.         Regulation. Continued widespread regulation targeting boards will continue. Industry Canada is contemplating governance reforms in 2014 or beyond. In the US, pay for performance, clawbacks, pay ratios, and proxy advisory regulations are likely in 2014.

4.         Director and auditor entrenchment. Expect pressure for board renewal and auditor rotation to continue in 2014. This will take the form of tenure limits, caps on directorships, diversity legislation, director and auditor evaluation, and mandatory requests for audit tender. Expect continued resistance by incumbent directors and the big 4, but expect also shareholder pressure and regulation to overcome.

5.         Cybercrime and other operational and reputation risks. Expect lawsuits targeting boards for data breach and investor loss at Adobe, Skype, Target, Neiman Marcus and Snapchat that precipitate governance enhancements. Expect greater risk regulation and spends for financial service companies and non-banks. Many boards and management have immature risk management, deficient – or at times non-existent – controls over IT, operational, and reputation risks. Look for efforts by good boards to have risk expertise on the board; internal oversight functions and third party reviews reporting to the board; and assurance over the entire risk appetite framework. Expect lawsuits and increasing regulation for the laggards.

6.         Focus on longer-term value creation. Expect asset owners to exert pressure on directors and asset managers to develop long-term metrics commensurate with the product and risk cycle of the company. Pay metrics such as health, innovation, culture, R and D, etc. will drive long-term investment. Look for “integrated” reporting and metric maturity in 2014 and 2015, making it easier for corporate boards to direct long-term non-financial incentive pay and investment.

7.         Focus on the Board Chair. Expect greater movement to non-executive Chairs from Lead Directors in the US, and Chair position maturity in other Anglo-American countries. Look for rigorous roles and responsibilities of board chairs developing, beyond formal independence, including driving value creation and company performance for investors.

8.         Greater clarity on pay for performance. Look for guidance by the SEC, including on realizable pay. Expect movement from short term, quantitative, financial pay metrics to long term, non-financial, qualitative, multi-year return metrics, and pay that adjusts for risk and performance over the longer term, with greater discretion to compensation committees and boards – and if necessary shareholders.

9.         Tightening up of independence standards. Look for boards to tighten up independent standards over lawyers, compensation consultants, auditors, and themselves, to arrive at “non-conflicted directors getting non-conflicted advice.” Look for scrutiny over soft management influence and capture over all of the above. Expect continued regulation if or when boards resist.

10.       Greater focus on culture, whistleblowing, tone in the middle, and anti corruption. Expect good boards to go beyond the CEO to scrutinize compensation of “risk takers” anywhere in the organization; share the hiring, firing and compensation decisions for risk, internal audit, compliance and the CFO; and receive assurance and reporting over all material risks and controls. CEOs (or any operating or senior management) who block or are not transparent should be regarded as red flags.

Richard Leblanc is a governance lawyer, academic, speaker and independent advisor to leading boards of directors. He can be reached at rleblanc@yorku.ca or followed on Twitter @drrleblanc.

Discussion notes for Corporate Secretary Think Tank Canada Panel, 2 October 2013: Panel: Shareholder Activism, 9:30-10:45am

Oct 1

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership, Shareholder Accountability | Comments Off on Discussion notes for Corporate Secretary Think Tank Canada Panel, 2 October 2013: Panel: Shareholder Activism, 9:30-10:45am

There have been a number of activist situations in Canada recently, including CP, Agrium, Telus, BlackBerry, Tim Hortons and others. Is your board a siting duck or otherwise vulnerable? Here is what the red flags are for defective governance, below.

Methodology

The following reflects, in no particular order: (i) my work in advising regulators (e.g., OSFI, OSC, AGCO, FiCom, others) in respect of governance; (ii) interviews with 40 activists, private equity leaders, members of the NACD 100, and top 100 CEO listing in 2013; (iii) my advisory work in two activist situations above (both advising the activist in the first, and board under attack in the second); (iv) my work with governance enhancements in companies that have been accused of fraud, bribery, corruption, stock manipulation and otherwise (ten in total); and (v) my advising and assessing award-winning boards (nine in total), who have strengthened their governance. The data collection has included individual director interviews and observing the board in action. For the full paper, published in the International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, November 2013, Special Issue: Enhancing the Effectiveness of the 21st Century Board of Directors: Part II, edited by myself, please contact me and I will email it to you.

Governance red flags, for activist attack and board bulletproofing, especially board composition, leadership, value creation and compensation, include the following, in no particular order

1. Captured, owned directors (trips, gifts, friends, company office, interlocks, school together, jobs for kids, donations, Directors economically dependent on fees): not objectively independent and/or owned in the boardroom, and Board refuses to have heightened independence standards or address the foregoing;

2. Directors with reputational, adverse publicity, integrity, independence, other board performance, egregious action or failure baggage, or inadequate experience and track record, and Board does not cure the distraction or adverse inference (i.e., promptly remove the Director);

3. No or little industry (market / geography, customer, supply chain) expertise on Board, and Board incapable of providing strategic control and direction to Management;

4. Legacy, pedigree, over-boarded (>2), over-tenured (>9 years), or otherwise ‘zombie’ Directors without new blood, diversity and renewal. Evidence is: busy boards with busy directors (>2 boards) “consistent and convincing” worse long-term performance and oversight (Stanford researchers); >9 years directorship reduces firm value (“board tenure has an inverted U-shape relation firm value” – Huang, July 2013); and gamed majority voting returns ‘zombie’ director to board. Global regulatory director tenure converging on 9-10 years (UK, India, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, other). Management-beholden, cozy, over-tenured, or legacy service providers (law, audit, compensation): no renewal or freedom to be adverse: regulators now addressing;

5. Management who unduly influence independent oversight functions (internal audit, chief risk officer, chief compliance officer, chief actuary, or equivalents) or external assurance advisors (external audit, governance lawyer, compensation consultant, search firm) from Board or Committee oversight, by preselecting, starving or otherwise unduly influencing. Regulators are becoming clear these functions are to be independent of senior and operational Management, and accountable to the Board and/or relevant Committee directly;

6. Weak, legacy, not independent, not effective, or unskilled Chair (Board or Committee): specifically, a Chair owned by Management or a dominant Shareholder, or both, or who does not understand obligations, capital markets, lacks leadership, credibility, cannot implement strict management accountability standards, and lacks subject matter or industry expertise; A Chair who should not be Chair, in other words;

7. A Board Chair who cannot lead value creation: An activist Board does the following:

  • Board, led by Chair, sets standards for vigorous value creation process, establishes ambitious value creation criteria, and leads Management to develop optimal value creation plan;
  • Deep dives and due diligence by all Directors into company, business model, industry and markets to understand value drivers, innovation opportunities and associated risks;
  • Board approves plan and its milestones, monitors progress regularly, calling for prompt corrective action to ensure goals are met, including increased goals as new unplanned/unanticipated opportunities arise;
  • Value maximization plan clearly and simply spells out key timelines, milestones, targets, and individuals accountable for each key plan component and specific results;
  • Reporting format and information flow provides frequent, timely and accurate information to Board on plan progress and any variances;
  • Board addresses plan variances quickly and directly: Management provides concrete responses on how shortfall will be corrected, by whom and when;
  • Chair adopts a primary role in foregoing;
  • Maintenance of ‘day to day’ management by CEO and rest of executive team;
  • Highly engaged level of functioning by Board and a shift in primary focus towards value creation; and
  • Robust debate and review of plan execution is primary board meeting agenda item; and at least one presentation each board meeting from key personnel below the senior level, on that particular individual’s role in the value maximization plan and a full discussion of progress to date in that regard.

9. CEO and other management information/personnel funneling, channel blocking, and starving of the Board; a weak Chair who does not cure; buy-in to “nose in fingers out” drinking of the Kool-Aid promulgated by Management and even director associations (see item 8 above), without an activist Director who can move the room;

10. Lack of executive/in camera sessions without any Management (including General Counsel / Corporate Secretary) in the room (i.e., executive sessions of and with: the Board; each Committee; each independent oversight function (see item 6); each external assurance provider (item 6); and key Shareholders, without Management);

11. Lack of regular meetings with Directors and major long-term Shareholders, and Board Chair directing counsel not to interfere; and failure of Board to understand/appreciate, or be misinformed about, shareholder base, and their concerns, behaviors, styles and preferences, including dissident activity by insurgents and activists: no early warning system or rapid response, experienced fight team, and being caught flat-footed;

12. Not listening to, or acting upon, advisory, precatory or withhold proposals, resolutions, votes, the will of shareholders, or listening to advisors, or having conflicted advisors, and curing the underlying issue(s) promptly;

13. Lack of value creation plan, with focus on innovation or strategy by the Board, or a separate board Committee if the Board cannot or will not (see item 8 above for what this looks like);

14. Lack of confidence in Directors by investors: A board incapable or unwilling to direct, control or replace underperforming, ineffective or inefficient Management;

15. An arrogant, insulated, bloated, complacent, non-introspective, defensive, clubby or otherwise inexperienced board that is in denial, not in charge, has lost objectivity, is not credible, does not have a sense of urgency, cannot be relied upon, and/or has become entrenched;

16. A governance analysis by a Board that is not at least equal to that of the activist, who bases theirs on public (not inside) information;

17. Directors who are ‘paid for showing up’ (per meeting, per committee, flat fee, etc., or excessively paid) without incentive link from their pay (cash and equity) to individual performance and/or achieving company value creation hurdles; and spending Directors’ own money on stock, vs. being awarded stock for attendance (current);

18. Boilerplate, inadequate, complex or gamed disclosure;

19. Failure to appreciate the sophistication, resources, screening, homework, PR, signaling, persuasive ability, staying power and resolve of an activist to go the distance;

20. A Board allowing Management to become emotional and attack the activist, rather than focus on the value creation plan, the issue(s), and communicating this to Shareholders to win support, or compromise, or resolve with the activist (as the case may be);

21. A Board itself becoming defensive to reasonable governance enhancements or significant reform: going dark, lawyering up, engaging in window dressing, di minimis action, and/or siding with Management at the expense of the Company and Shareholders (as the case may be), thinking the issue will go away; or acting in the best interests of company as pretext for perceived self interest;

22. Entrenchment: Non reasonable pills, staggered, dual, super, restrictions, thresholds, advance notice, bylaws, etc., devised by incumbent Management counsel, approved by Board, and perceived to hide, block or frustrate fluid market for corporate control and/or director removal;

23. Advocacy and funding of trade associations, advisors, lobbyists to resist governance reform (using Shareholder money by self-serving Management is the view of some activists);

24. Inadequate attention to validating (and on occasion misrepresenting) each Director’s expertise: in other words, linking the strategy and value creation plan of the Company to each Director’s separate competencies;

25. Not countering the expertise and track record of each incumbent Director on the Management slate vs. each prospective Director on the dissident slate, removing any weak Director on Management slate where necessary: in other words, not countering the activist two part concerns that: (i) change is necessary, and (ii) the activist Director slate can more effectively address the change;

26. Management hubris, herding, empire building, going beyond pure play, poor capital deployment or cash oversight, asset or supply chain mismanagement, deficient operating, financial or strategic performance, or running out of options, and Board not owing the best ideas for unlocking of shareholder value before the activist does, with the Board being perceived as “enthusiastic amateurs” (large institutional shareholder CEO, from interviews);

27. Over-reliance on inflated peers and hyper benchmarking, (salary-disguised, non stretch bonuses, LTIP not performance-based (PSUs)), and 17% of CEO pay unrelated to performance rather than structural result of year-over-year above-median peer group pay (Elson and Ferrere, August 2012);

28. Excessive compensation equity to management: mixed relationship to performance, tendency to manipulate, and a Board moving goalposts;

29. Lack of proper independent governance treatment and disclosure of waste, conflicts of interest, related party transactions, complex structures, use of corporate opportunity, and extraction of Shareholder money to founder, family or insider, and sleepy Board;

30. Lack of integration of academic research: Recent disclosure in reference to 1994 Dey guidelines: “We did virtually no research.”; and

31. Board or retained management advisors that subscribes to the myth, or do not confront the evidence, that hedge fund interventions do not create long term positive operating performance and value for all shareholders, when systemic study shows they do (Bebchuk, July, 2013: analysis of 2000 interventions over 1994-2007 studied @ 5 year periods).

Richard W. Leblanc, PhD

 

 

 

When does it become unethical for a director to continue to serve?

Sep 19

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership, Ethical Leadership, Citizenship and Integrity | Comments Off on When does it become unethical for a director to continue to serve?

I spoke to corporate and not-for-profit directors in Dallas, Texas, today, about board dynamics and board renewal. The subject of the length of board service and director retirement arose. I said there was a recent study that the optimal service for a director was nine years, beyond which firm value was adversely affected. Many directors serve beyond nine years. The most excessive example of long service occurred once when a director of a community bank board said, “Richard we have four directors who have been on our board for over 50 years.” I mistakenly thought that this was 50 years in total, among the four directors. But I was wrong. There were four directors who had been on the board for over 50 years, each.

Many directors hang on to directorships for far too long. I counted several directors who have been on corporate boards for 10, 15, 20 and 25 years. This blocks board renewal, up-skilling, and diversification. Incumbent directors offer reasons for staying: how they know the company, enjoy serving, etc., and are skillful at wiggling, raising the retirement age to 71, 72 and now 75 (from 69 and 70).

The academic evidence however does not support excessively long-serving directors, or directors who are serving on multiple boards (known as “over-tenured” and “over-boarded” directors, respectively). Firm value is adversely affected for over tenured directors (inverted U shape in relation to firm value); and oversight and long term performance are compromised by “consistent and convincing results” (according to Stanford researchers) for busy boards composed of over-boarded directors.

Often the most vocal directors are those who are the least relevant or most affected by renewal. When you do a proper board review, it is apparent who is performing and who is not. There is resistance to an expert third party board evaluation by underperforming directors for fear of being found out. Directors know who the non-performers are. I said to the audience this morning that every board has one (or more) underperforming or dysfunctional directors, and if you don’t know who it is on your board, then it is you.

If boards do not solve their lack of renewal, regulators will do it for them. It is already starting. Regulators in the UK, Australia, India, Hong Kong, Singapore and other countries are imposing term limits on directors of between 9 and 10 years, beyond which independence is questioned. Regulators are imposing diversity requirements on boards. In the UK, even auditors are subject to tendering every five years. Regulators read the press reports of directors serving 40 years, auditors even serving up to 100, and communicate with academics on what the empirical research findings are.

The fact of the matter is that boards, as self-policing bodies, may be incapable of solving the renewal issue on their own because of entrenchment and self-interest. And herein lies the ethical question, posed to me by a director today: “When does hanging on or digging in breach a fiduciary duty by the director to act in the company’s best interest, rather than the director’s?” When should doing what is right; putting oneself at risk; having proper succession planning; mentoring, coaching and developing the next generation of directors; and letting go gracefully and honorably, matter?

This is an integrity issue. If – or perhaps when – a director becomes irrelevant, or is destroying value, is it ethical for that director to continue? Is it ethical for the board to allow that director to continue? The problem is doing what is ethical vs. acting out of self-interest can get commingled in an under performing director’s mind, or even a founder’s mind, or even other directors’ minds (who have been captured by the entrenched director colleague), without an objective measurement. This is neither person-proofing governance, nor in the interests of the company and its shareholders.

Aggrandizing long service, referring to “god fathers,” compounds this renewal problem and wearing as a badge of honor how many boards one has served on, or does serve on. As one “godfather” recently remarked in open session at a corporate governance conference, “We did virtually no research.” Well, maybe research should be looked to more when policy is developed. Firm value and the oversight of shareholder investment are at stake.

Eventually, a director fights redundancy and relevance. A tipping point is reached if there is indefinite service. It is inevitable. No one wants to be irrelevant. If there is no policy or, better yet, no measurement of actual performance and follow up accordingly, self-interest is perpetuated and complacency is allowed to continue, by the very people who should be leading by example. Directors need to know when it is time to go. And if they do not, regulators will.

 

What are some best governance practices of award-winning companies?

Sep 16

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership | Comments Off on What are some best governance practices of award-winning companies?

I recently served on a governance awards judging panel assembled by the Canadian Society of Corporate Secretaries (CSCS). Winners of the awards were announced at this organization’s annual conference in Halifax last month. I participated in a plenary discussion to discuss some of the winning practices, and governance generally.

Here are the six award-winning companies, the categories under which they won, and their governance practices and results that they have that are, in my view, exemplary, in no particular order:

Shoppers Drug Mart – Best practices in managing boardroom diversity

  • Five out of eleven Directors are female, with two of three women Committee Chairs;
  • Continuous review of a robust director competency matrix, including focusing on board dynamics and decision-making;
  • Detailed director recruiting using precise director profile output resulting from the competency matrix assessment;
  • Board does not require CEO experience, and Board recruits and appoints first-time Directors;
  • Prospective Directors includes individuals not previously known to incumbent Directors;
  • Rigorous director interviews, including assessing capacity for constructive challenge, and comprehensive, tailored onboarding process; and
  • Limits on board tenure, over-boarding and interlocks.

Bank of Montreal – Best use of technology in governance, risk and compliance

  • Board portal with encrypted materials on a secure intranet site, secure email, user friendly interface, paperless iPad, and separate Director education iPad App;
  • Global entity records and management systems, with searchability, real time accuracy and updates, customization, validation, aggregation, and comprehensive, enterprise-wide compliance monitoring and reporting;
  • Investor relations alerts, conference calls and audio webcasts;
  • Ethics, legal and compliance: interactive, tailored, training annually for select employees, and suppliers, with user guide and follow-up;
  • Specialized regulatory training for senior management, all other employees, to educate, train, strengthen risk culture, using internal website, mandatory readings and eLearning;
  • Online governance and director assessment by the Board;

BCE – Best overall governance

  • Individual annual director elections, majority voting, independent Chair, advisory vote on executive compensation, and director interlock and tenure guidelines;
  • Internal audit and Risk Manager Officer report directly to Audit Committee Chair;
  • Electronic voting at annual shareholder meetings;
  • Comprehensive ethics program, focus on audit independence, and whistle-blowing policy;
  • Full written governance mandates, board leader position descriptions, education, orientation, and comprehensive board evaluation process and governance disclosure;
  • Focus on director competencies, geography and performance;

Tarion Warranty Corporation – Best approach to board and committee support

  • Annual work plan, consent agendas, skills matrix, terms of reference, position descriptions, and board portal;
  • Third party governance review, including peer to peer review of Directors;
  • Term limits for Board Chair and Directors, and guideline limits for Committee Chairs;
  • Six Directors with board certification;
  • Balanced score card and key performance indicators (KPIs) for company and CEO performance;
  • KPIs presented to Board at each meeting in dashboard format, and reviewed in depth by Audit Committee;
  • Stakeholder relations department to enhance focus on stakeholder satisfaction, engagement and communication;

Canada Council for the Arts – Best shareholder / stakeholder engagement

  • Highly consultative culture and stakeholder engagement, exemplary annual reporting, rotating meetings geographically;
  • Strategic engagement (financial and non-financial), outreach, dialogue, surveys, consultation sessions and workgroups, with comprehensive, exemplary written shareholder and other stakeholder reporting, follow-up, and use of social media;
  • Direct Board contact with artists, arts community, partners, leaders and other stakeholders;
  • Directors as ambassadors at stakeholder outreach events, nationally and internationally;

TELUS Corporation – Best sustainability, ethics and environmental governance program

  • Board and Committee leadership to monitor corporate social responsibility (CSR), including environmental policies, enterprise energy strategy, ethics policy, whistleblower policy;
  • Employee, environment and community engagement, culture and performance (numerous examples and leadership);
  • Governance Reporting Initiative reporting on CSR performance since 2000, third party reporting verification, stakeholder solicitation, and CSR reporting recognition;
  • Environment management system since mid-1990s, carbon footprint reporting early adopter, and alignment goal of ISO 14001:2004 compliant by 2014;
  • CSR metrics integrated into strategic planning, and CEO and other executive performance objectives; and
  • Supplier code of conduct in 2011 for business partner adherence.

It was an honor to serve on this judging panel and the above Canadian companies should be celebrated – as well as their Directors – for setting the ever-rising bar for effective corporate governance.

Corporate Directors: “You Hold Much of Our Future is in Your Hands”

Jul 28

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership | Comments Off on Corporate Directors: “You Hold Much of Our Future is in Your Hands”

In an inspirational video for the National Association of Corporate Directors’ annual conference, one speaker remarks, “Directors: You hold much of our future in your hands.” Another said “More government is not the answer: We are.”

The above are not exaggerations. Layers and layers of regulation and compliance are dragging corporate governance downward. Many boards have largely marginalized value creation and strategy, my research suggests. America is in danger of experiencing a lost decade since the financial crisis, given its debt and political intransigence. Corporations and their boards need to lead the way.

Boards should revitalize, as the American economy (and the world) is dependent on it. But they need to do so in a way that puts their own interests and reputations at risk. They need to be ruthless in recreating – and think only of the best interests of their enterprises. They need to “future proof” in other words, which is the theme of the NACD conference.

Future-proofing the boardroom means renewing and preparing for the future irrespective of present incumbents and office holders. This is extraordinarily difficult to do for any group, let alone corporate boards.

Here are some tough questions good boards should be struggling with:

Do we have the right directors?

Do we as a whole have the right competencies and skills, but more importantly do we have courage to replace those directors who do not? If we are one of those directors, do we have the courage and integrity to step down, i.e., not act in self-interest? Tough conversations need to be had with directors who refuse to go.

Do we have the right chair?

Does our Chair (or Lead Director) have the independence, attributes, experience and track record that the company and senior management needs and respects – to lead the board, hold management to account, and focus on value creation? If not, a tough conversation needs to occur.

Do we focus on strategy and value creation?

Assuming we have the right directors and Chair, do we spend enough time on the strategy and value creation of the enterprise? Is at least 50% of our time spent here? If not, why not and how do we fix this?

Do we have a long-term focus and the right metrics that drive management to focus on the long-term as well?

Do we measure and reward performance such as innovation, health, reputation, talent, culture, satisfaction and engagement, that is aligned with our product and risk cycle? These metrics are key to value creation. Or are we subsumed by the short-term? If we are (as most boards are), how do we change this?

Do we really listen and communicate with our shareholders?

Do we engage meaningfully and authentically with our major, long-term shareholders? Do we listen to and act on their concerns, or do we entrench and are we defensive? If we do not listen and act, then why not, and how can we structure ourselves differently?

Are directors sufficiently independent from each other and from management?

Do we bring on directors who are not previously known to us or to management? Are we scrupulous in not allowing directors to be compromised, and act when we see that a director is? Do all directors disclose when they are compromised?

Do we embrace and understand technology?

There is an enormous transformation afoot. See a reading list as an example of digital media’s impact on reputation, business models, big data and change. Do boards have the ability to understand and predict how their company and industry will change? If not, recruit directors who do.

Do we establish the right tone at the top?

Lastly, do we direct management to establish systems, controls and an ethical culture that rewards proper risk taking? Do we lead by example, and are we ruthless in acting at the slightest deviation from proper business conduct and integrity?

The above questions are adopted from a larger paper I authored focusing on strengthening public company boards, in which I interviewed forty activists, private equity leaders, NACD 100 members and CEOs, here.

The answers to the above questions are fundamental for corporate boards and their directors. More importantly, candid answers will have implications for the way a current board is constituted, is led, and functions.

Answering the questions truthfully, unbiasedly and void of any personal interest whatsoever will be the toughest part for any board.

Richard Leblanc is a governance lawyer, academic, speaker and independent advisor to leading Canadian and international boards of directors. He can be reached at rleblanc@boardexpert.com.

Proposals to Strengthen a Board’s Role in Value Creation, Management Accountability to the Board, and Board Accountability to Shareholders

Jun 8

Posted in Board and Committee Leadership, Member Selection, Competencies and Commitment, Shareholder Accountability | Comments Off on Proposals to Strengthen a Board’s Role in Value Creation, Management Accountability to the Board, and Board Accountability to Shareholders

There have been a handful of activist threats to Canadian companies recently.

What these engagements have drawn focus on are defects in public company governance, including the skill sets of existing directors, the board’s focus on value creation vs compliance, and the very ways boards function and operate, particularly compared to private equity boards.

What follows is a series of recommendations that could apply to any public board: to make it more focused on value creation; to strengthen real director independence, including from management; to strengthen management accountability to the board; and, perhaps most importantly, to strengthen board accountability to shareholders.

These recommendations are expected to form a journal article I am authoring, and will be incorporated into a case on Canadian Pacific I am co-authoring. I will post the journal article once it is published, but I thought I would post the recommendations below, for commentary and criticism, particularly from my LinkedIn Group “Boards and Advisors.” (I have not included the supporting rationale/commentary for each recommendation, which will appear in the journal article; however, most of the recommendations are rather self-explanatory on their own.)

The recommendations are based on, in no particular order: interviews with activist investors, private equity leaders, directors and CEOs; advisory work with regulators; assessments of leading boards; expert-witness work; academic and practitioner literature and regulations in other countries; director conferences and webinars; lectures I have delivered to the Institute of Corporate Directors and Directors College; discussions in my LinkedIn group, Board and Advisors; and a book I am writing including with Henry D. Wolfe and Frank Feather entitled “Building High Performance Boards.”

Several recommendations may result in significant restructuring and change in how a public company board operates, functions, is composed, engages and focuses.

What follows is a listing of the recommendations, organized into three groupings, as follows:

I.           Increase Board Engagement, Expertise and Incentives to Focus on Value Creation (proposals 1-19)

II.         Increase Director Independence from Management and Management Accountability to the Board (proposals 20-30)

III.       Increase Director Accountability to Shareholders (proposals 31-38)

We will now begin with grouping I.

I.          Increase Board Engagement, Expertise and Incentives to Focus on Value Creation

1.         Reduce the size of the Board.

2.         Increase the frequency of Board meetings.

3.         Limit Director overboardedness.

4.         Limit Chair of the Board overboardedness.

5.         Increase Director work time.

6.         Increase the Board Chair’s role in the value creation process.

7.         Focus the majority of Board time on value creation and company performance.

8.         Increase Director roles and responsibilities relative to value creation.

9.         Increase Director compensation, and match incentive compensation to long-term value creation and individual performance.

10.       Enable Director access to information and reporting Management.

11.       Enable Director and Board access to expertise to inform value creation as needed.

12.       Require active investing in the Company by Directors.

13.       Select Directors who can contribute directly to value creation.

14.       Revise the Board’s committee structure to address value creation.

15.       Hold Management to account.

16.       Disclose individual Director areas of expertise directly related to value creation.

17.       Increase Board engagement focused on value creation.

18.       Establish and fund an independent Office of the Chairman.

19.       Limit Board homogeneity and groupthink.

We will now continue with grouping II.

II.        Increase Director Independence from Management and Management Accountability to the Board

20.       Increase objective Director and advisory independence.

21.       Limit Director interlocks.

22.       Limit over-tenured Directors.

23.       Limit potential Management capture and social relatedness of Directors.

24.       Decrease undue Management influence on Director selection.

25.       Decrease undue Management influence on Board Chair selection.

26.       Increase objective independence of governance assurance providers.

27.       Limit management control of board protocols.

28.       Address fully perceived conflicts of interest.

29.       Establish independent oversight functions reporting directly to Committees of the Board to support compliance oversight.

30.       Match Management compensation with longer-term value creation, corporate performance and risk management.

We will now conclude with grouping III.

Increase Director Accountability to Shareholders

31.       The Board Chair and Committee Chairs shall communicate face-to-face and visit regularly with major Shareholders.

32.       Communicate the value creation plan to Shareholders.

33.       Implement integrated, longer-term reporting focused on sustained value creation that includes non-financial performance and investment.

34.       Implement independent and transparent Director performance reviews with Shareholder input linked to re-nomination.

35.       Each Director, each year, shall receive a majority of Shareholder votes cast to continue serving as a Director.

36.       Make it easier for Shareholders to propose and replace Directors.

37.       Limit any undue Management influence on Board – Shareholder communication.

38.       Limit Shareholder barriers to the governance process that can be reasonably seen to promote Board or Management entrenchment.

Conclusion

There have been significant changes to corporate governance in the last few years. Most notably, boards and regulators are now dealing with a defective legacy of independent directors who do not possess the relevant expertise. The scholarship has never supported independent board or separate chairs and the causal relationship to corporate performance. Regulators and most recently shareholders are now are focusing on competencies.

Second, there has been an under-emphasis on strategy and value creation by many boards, at the expense and crowding out of compliance obligations. Shareholders are now addressing this shortcoming.

Third, there is a movement towards shareholders exerting ownership rights to effect the governance of the company and select and remove directors who can address the earlier two points: competencies and skills, and fulfillment of the strategic and value creation role of the board.

Fourth, there is the real perception that directors are beholden to management.

I have addressed in the above recommendations all four defects in the current governance model for public companies: (i) directors selected primarily with a view to formal independence; (ii) not addressing fully the strategic and value creation role of the board; (iii) shareholders having greater say on directors and value creation; and (iv) making boards more independent of management, and management more accountable to boards.

I am happy to respond to any of the above.

Richard Leblanc, PhD

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