Private Directors Association
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Webinar | Bare Bone Board Basics #1- Series Overview & Preview
Thursday, November 11, 2021, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM CDT
Category: New York Metro

02:00 PM - 03:30 PM (Pacific)
03:00 PM - 04:30 PM (Mountain)
04:00 PM - 05:30 PM (Central)
05:00 PM - 06:30 PM (Eastern)

Register
Zoom invitation will be shared the day before the event.

Overview

Every corporation has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. As the brain can be said to govern a person's actions, a board of directors governs the actions of a corporation. And leaving aside some legal nuances, the same can be said of the manager of an LLC. Publicly listed companies have active boards; they must. Historically, many private companies have not, though that has been changing rapidly over the past decade.

The job of a board director can be quite difficult yet can be greatly rewarding.

The benefits almost any company with multiple owners (and often even a company with a single owner) can derive from having an excellent and active board are tremendous.

This is the first in a series of webinars produced by certain chapters of the Private Directors Association (currently, Alabama, Dallas, DC Metro, Nashville, New England, New York City Metro, Tampa Bay & Wisconsin) in association with  Financial Poise™ and certain other professional associations (TBA), to make you a more effective board member. Episode #1 will go wide, not deep, and touch on each of the topics that will be covered later in the series:

  1. Public v. Private & Fiduciary v. Advisory: Different Boards for Different Situations
  2. Where the Board's Duties Stop & the C-Suite's Duties Begin: An Overview of a Board's Functions & Fiduciary Duties
  3. How to Conduct a Board Meeting
  4. Committees of a Board & Work Between Board Meetings
  5. Recruiting & Renumerating Directors & What Directors Should Do Before Saying Yes
  6. Special Issues Require Special Attention: Retaining Experts & Conducting Investigations
  7. Soft Skills Workshop: Leadership, Communication & Trust [TBD]
  8. Enterprise Risk Management [TBD]
  9. Going into Executive Session [TBD]
  10. The Workings of the Audit Committee [TBD]
  11. The Workings of the Compensation Committee [TBD]

Thank you to our National and Gold Chapter Sponsors!

Panelists

    Elaine Eisenman
Managing Director
Saeje Advisors

Elaine has served on public, private, PE, non-profit, start-up, family and advisory boards for over 20 years. She is an independent director of DBI (NYSE), a vertically integrated shoe manufacturer and retailer, chairs the Compensation Committee and is a member of the Audit Committee.

She is Managing Director of Saeje Advisors, providing strategic advisory services to private companies, and a faculty member at Entrepreneurship Policy Advisors, developing entrepreneurial ecosystems through growing and scaling companies. She was a senior executive for several global public companies, and a Professor and Dean of Executive and Enterprise Education at Babson College.

She is the coauthor of Betrayed: a survival guide to lying, cheating, and double-dealing, and of I Didn’t See it Coming: How to avoid being blind-sided in business.

 

  Allan Grafman
Investment Banker, Oberon Securities, LLC
CEO, All Media Ventures

Allan Grafman serves on audit and all other committees and is a SEC ‘financial expert.’ As an investment banker, he raises capital. He is currently Chair of the Audit Committee of a public company and a director of a REIT. Allan has served on 12 boards that were public, private equity and venture sponsored. He chaired public company, audit committee and special sale committees, and he led successful sale as Chairman of a NASDAQ listed company. Previously, Allan was a PE Partner, Chairman of the Board, President Archie   Comics, CEO of VC portco, EVP & CFO of Hallmark, VP at Tribune, VP at ABC Cable, and DJ salesman KSHE.

    Christina M. Rashid
Founder and Managing Member
Lotos Groupe LLC

Ms. Rashid has enjoyed nearly thirty years of continuous board service for private companies and nonprofits.  She currently serves as an independent director of First Women’s Bank (Chair of Nominating & Governance Committee), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital/ALSAC (Vice-Chair of Audit & Compliance Committee), and as an Advisory Board Member and advisor to the C-Suite of several private companies. 

She comes to board work after a long career as an operating and financial executive and with three decades of experience in leveraged lending, private equity and venture capital, including having served as an executive and investment committee member of a NYSE Investment Company.

Ms. Rashid earned her MBA from University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and a BBA in accounting from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame.  

Moderator

    Jonathan Friedland
Partner
Sugar Felsenthal Grais & Helsinger LLP

Jonathan Friedland is a partner with Sugar Felsenthal where he regularly counsels boards of directors and owners of companies in financial distress. His wide range of experience includes representing companies in chapter 11, out-of-court workouts, and liquidations. He also has substantial experience in running both a wide variety of corporate transaction and a wide array of commercial litigation. Jonathan is widely recognized as a leading corporate restructuring and insolvency attorney by a number of legal publications, including having been rated for many years as AV® Preeminent™ by Martindale-Hubbell, 10/10 by AVVO, and 10/10 by Justia. Jonathan is the principal author of two leading legal treatises, and his scholarship is widely cited by legal scholars.

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