News | Private Directors Association

How to Effectively Search for the Right Board Candidates

So you have finally decided it is time to add qualified Independent Directors to the Board of your company. Or you have decided to replace the dead wood from your Board. Now what? Where do you start? What will it cost? Where will you find good candidates? How do you know you have selected the Right Candidate? How many Board members should you have? How do you go about asking some of your current Board members to resign?

Download Document

The Advantage of Global Expertise on the Board

Consider a technology company from the West Coast with annual sales of $10 billion looking to expand into Asia. This high-tech company identified a deficit of board-level talent to direct the expansion. The organization lacked board members with both native and proven global experience.

Download Document

The Board-s Role in Strategy, Risk Assessment, and Corporate Renewal

Strategy and planning are management’s jobs. The board’s role in strategy, risk assessment, and corporate renewal is to oversee and question the work of management. The board must not only question the results of the strategy exercise but also question the process and assumptions that went into the strategy and various analyses.

Download Document

Improving Information Flow to The Board

CEO’s have profound control over the material that gets presented to a company’s board of directors. At times there may be issues with the adequacy, accuracy and timeliness of what the board sees. The point of this article is to sensitize the board to what it should be seeing and how to improve the quality of that information flow.

Download Document

New Director Considerations During the Recruitment Process

The benefits of being a director of a public company are well known: great business challenges, prolific networking opportunities, national prestige and substantial compensation. This is not so true with private companies. In fact, understanding the motivations of the candidate is one of the most common questions asked in the first interview.

Download Document

Board Strategic Planning Considerations

Over the last 30 years, there have been a variety of approaches to strategy, strategic planning, risk assessment, and renewal. These approaches range from simple to complex.

Download Document

The Outsourcing Option for Staffing the Office of the Corporate Secretary

An active board of directors, either advisory or fiduciary, including independent outside directors sets the optimal governance oversight tone in a family business. FBCG studies have shown that the highest-performing family firms tend to have a fiduciary board with the majority of board members as independent outsiders versus family members.

Download Document

Evolving Your Family Business Board

An active board of directors, either advisory or fiduciary, including independent outside directors sets the optimal governance oversight tone in a family business. FBCG studies have shown that the highest-performing family firms tend to have a fiduciary board with the majority of board members as independent outsiders versus family members.

Download Document

Should the Corporate Secretary and General Counsel Roles be Separated?

The role of the corporate secretary has evolved to entail many and varied managerial and administrative responsibilities. These responsibilities fall into the categories of board and committee support, executive management collaboration, legal entity governance management and governance program and process development and enhancement.

Download Document

Serving on the Board of a Distressed Company

If you are looking for opportunities to serve on corporate boards, you have probably had a successful business career. During that time you have learned to plot strategy, manage people, analyze tough business problems and make decisions. Somewhere along the way, you may have worked in a business unit that had problems and things changed. The pace of activity, the intensity, the stakes of making a wrong move all became more stressful, but your learning curve became progressively steeper.

Download Document