Directors & Boards articles from March 1997

Directors & Boards archives from March 1997

In search of a model. (corporate governance)
March 22, 1997... I have been told that the task of predicting episodes of corporate governance is just too hard. I don't understand why. Suppose it were, say, the early days of the Reagan administration. And suppose at that time you knew when the next major...

Memoirs of a serious player. (Earl G. Graves Pres and CEO Earl G. Graves)(includes related article)(Cover Story)
March 22, 1997... What it takes, and what it means, to succeed - in business, in the boardroom, and in life. When black enterprise first appeared in 1970, there were only three black people among the 3,000 serving as directors on the boards of the Fortune 500...

Topgrading the organization.
March 22, 1997... Because of its impact on shareholder value, building a talent advantage over your competitors must be the number-one priority of board members and senior management. In the face of increasing international and domestic competition, two CEOs...

Special equity grants: do they create value? (includes related article)
March 22, 1997... If mega-grants are to be an effective device in creating shareholder value, they must have special performance characteristics. Close observers of the executive compensation scene have noticed attention being paid by the business press to...

Arriving at the right equity split.
March 22, 1997... A walk through the four steps of the compensation committee's most important decision: to determine the appropriate equity allocation for their company. Based on our 20 years of working directly with compensation committees, we have reached...

Business process outsourcing: the reshaping of global corporations to enhance shareholder value.
March 22, 1997... Few, if any, companies have the resources to develop and maintain best-in-class capability in every aspect of their businesses. Companies simply can't excel at everything. Boards of Directors recognize that global corporations must streamline...

Putting a value on governance. (includes related article)
March 22, 1997... Good board governance can serve as a tool for attracting certain types of investors as well as influencing what they will pay for stock. Says the CEO of a Fortune 500 company: "The board governance fad is being kept alive by a bunch of...

Is your board a high-performance team?
March 22, 1997... One approach to evaluating boards and their members is measuring them against team performance standards. When you hear the word "team," a board of directors probably isn't the first image that comes to mind. But an effective board needs to...

Shareholder value and me. (includes related article)
March 22, 1997... A personal reflection on the search for the elusive compass that leads to corporate greatness. In the early 1970s I was finishing up a night school MBA at NYU while employed as the assistant financial officer of a Fortune 100 conglomerate,...

Where the board drives succession planning. (Hercules Inc.)
March 22, 1997... At Hercules Inc., the philosophy is that strong boards make for strong management teams and solid succession plans. Our everyday work with boards and on top-level assignments naturally leads to an interest and involvement in the CEO succession...

Institutional Investors and Corporate Governance.
March 22, 1997... Carolyn Brancato is trying to put me out of business! I frequently lecture on the growth and activities of institutional investors. Now Dr. Brancato's book, "Institutional Investors and Corporate Governance: Best Practices for Increasing...

Fund Director's Guidebook.
March 22, 1997... Too many fund investors see themselves as consumers of mutual fund products rather than as owners of an investment company. That's understandable - most of us are far more familiar with the role of consumer than that of investment owner - but...