Directors & Boards articles from January 2002

Directors & Boards archives from January 2002

Towering collapse. (Letter from the Chairman).(Enron Corporation bankruptcy)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... 'IN REMEMBRANCE is an oft seen and heard refrain in New York City, but in mid-December, when I saw a huge banner emblazoned with that phrase draped inside Penn Station, I was struck by its irony: On the corner of the banner was the Enron...

Required reading. (Editor's Note).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... THE REVIEWS ARE IN, and they are superlative. The 25th anniversary edition of DIRECTORS & BOARDS -- our Fall 2001 issue, themed "An Oral History of Corporate Governance 1976-2001" -- "A milestone of corporate governance publications...the...

Low tide: The wave of outrage over Enron should not obscure important approaches to governance. (Quiddities).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... ONE NEED NOT possess dazzling oracular powers to conclude that the Enron debacle is a highly significant turning point in U.S. corporate history. Consider the following panorama: Item: As I write this on January 10, White House press...

Groupthink in the boardroom: Clarence Darrow said, 'To think is to differ.' Good boards encourage both coherence and dissent. (Some Things Considered).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... THIRTY YEARS AGO psychologist Irving Janis was struck by how often a group of otherwise intelligent people sometimes has great difficulty in reaching a good decision and named this phenomenon "groupthink." It is practiced by members of highly...

Cooperation with a capital C?: Interpreting the SEC's new guidelines on enforcement assistance. (Legal Brief).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... LAST OCTOBER, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an investigative report explaining its decision not to proceed against a public company that it had investigated for financial statement irregularities resulting from the misconduct of...

Between a rock and a hard market: Navigating the turbulent D&O insurance waters in the wake of September 11. (D&O Insurance Update).(directors' and officers' liability insurance)
January 1, 2002... MONTHS BEFORE last year's terrorist attacks, the market for D&O liability insurance was changing from a buyer's to a seller's market. The attacks and the havoc they wreaked upon insurers fueled a further hardening of this market. But even in...

EH&S assurance: How assured are you?; Avoid a Wile E. Coyote splat with a sound environmental assurance program. (The Environment).(environmental, health and safety performance programs)
January 1, 2002... DID CHAIRMAN Ken Lay know that Enron was zooming off the cliff like the famous coyote while Wall Street was marveling at his company's amazing success? In light of Enron's stone-like drop into the abyss, its "amazing success seems more like a...

Audit Committees: A guide for directors, management, and consultants. (Director Library).
January 1, 2002... By Frank M. Burke and Dan M. Guy Published by Aspen Law & Business, New York, 310 pages, $115.00 THIS RICH SOURCE of audit committee material is a "must buy," but read it selectively. CEOs and directors whose principal occupations are...

Expectations Investing. (Director Library).
January 1, 2002... By Alfred Rappaport and Michael J. Mauboussin Published by Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., 226 pages, $29.95 AL RAPPAPORT has written a new book, Expectations Investing: Reading Stock Prices for Better Returns, with...

Corporate governance and crisis management. (Crisis Management).
January 1, 2002... Developing an effective crisis management strategy is not an optional activity for a corporation -- it is at the heart of good corporate governance. From the boardroom to the factory floor, here are the principles of a comprehensive crisis...

Test your financial literacy: Financial literacy involves recognizing terms and understanding the implications of basic financial decisions. Here is one gauge of whether you make the grade. (Financial Reporting).
January 1, 2002... ARE YOU financially literate? If you sit on a public company board's audit committee, your answer had better be yes. Responding to the recommendations of a "Blue Ribbon Panel" appointed by the SEC, in June 2001 the three major stock...

Let Enron be a lesson to us all: There is plenty of room for governance improvement in most companies. Focus on these six key issues to enhance the effectiveness of a board. (Board Practices).
January 1, 2002... IT IS STILL WAY TOO EARLY to conclude precisely what caused the Enron debacle -- the largest corporate failure in the history of the planet. Nevertheless, it is clear that the executives, analysts, auditors, and directors involved have a lot of...

Creating and sustaining the strong director. (Director Education).
January 1, 2002... Director education is a vital but underestimated contributor to a culture of board independence, and is worthy of systematic attention by those who care about the governance of corporations. CREATING AND SUSTAINING the strong, independent...

The first 100 days for a new CEO: Don't squander those first vital days; wrong moves could take years to repair. Here are the right steps and the critical areas to address. (Organizational Leadership).(chief executive officer)
January 1, 2002... IT MIGHT NOT BE FAIR, but it's true: Your first few months as CEO -- the time when you're just starting to grasp the challenges of your new job -- may well turn out to be the most crucial time in your tenure. Everyone with an interest in your...

Co-CEOs and the sharing of power. (Succession Planning).(chief executive officers)
January 1, 2002... Let's examine the co-CEO relationship: the prevalence of this practice, the rationale for using such a structure, when to consider such structures, and KEY dos and don'ts in power sharing at the top. SHARING POWER at the top is not a new...

A baseline check of executive backgrounds. (Executive Recruiting).
January 1, 2002... Apply a high standard of care when considering candidates for CEO or other executive-level positions: There is no such thing as a time limitation on relevant background information. ACCORDING TO THE SEC, shareholder lawsuits related to the...

Delisting: A primer for directors. (Regulatory Oversight).
January 1, 2002... The board should not assume that it is always possible to come back into compliance. Consider carefully the appropriate and effective responses to the prospect of a delisting. DURING THE HEYDAY of the most recent IPO boom, the New York...

A solid start for a spinoff board. (Spencer Stuart Governance Letter).
January 1, 2002... Constructing a board for a spinoff presents a full agenda of challenges and opportunities. 'Start small and build' may be the best advice. IN BOARD RECRUITING, each company presents a unique set of challenges and objectives. Variables...

Directors Roster: In affiliation with Spencer Stuart -- a quarterly record of new director appointments. (Spencer Stuart/Directors & Boards Directors Roster).
January 1, 2002... ALLOTTING THEIR TIME to accommodate a new directorship is never easy, but it's manageable, say three executives interviewed by DIRECTORS & BOARDS for this edition's Directors Roster. They describe a balancing act of fine tuning their time...

If the world could be made up of Irv Shapiros: He had no tolerance for intolerance based on race, gender or religious bias. (Endnote).(former DuPont Chairman Irving S. Shapiro)(Obituary)
January 1, 2002... Ed. Note: Business giant Irving S. Shapiro, a former chairman of DuPont Co., died on September 13, 2001. As current DuPont Chairman Chad Holliday said of Shapiro to the New York Times obituary writer, "He was equally at home in the boardroom,...