Sudden Death of a Ceo : Death and Succession planning
Sudden Death of a Ceo : Death and Succession planning
By Professor, David F. Larcker and Brian Tayan, Researcher, Corporate Governance Research Program, Stanford Graduate School of Business It is very difficult for shareholders to know detailed information about CEO succession planning among the companies they have invested in. Although CEO deaths are rare, the sudden death of a CEO can provide insight into the quality of succession planning and governance of a company. Whereas some companies are able to appoint a successor immediately, others take weeks or months to do so.
Source : boardmember.com
Tech CEOs - life on the edge of risk management
By Aarty Maharaj
“Heading up a company is not all it’s cracked up to be. A CEO has to be a master - at almost everything. Whether it’s legislative advocacy, solid corporate governance practices, strategic planning or even choosing the right staff members, these head honchos must be able to balance every aspect of an organization’s future and stand at the forefront of success or failure.
In the tech industry, for instance, CEOs have been experiencing a significant amount of change. Sometimes these executives are stretched too thin because of the complex nature of tech services now driven by the evolving social networking platform. In this setting, the job of the CEO goes beyond simply achieving excellence in strategic execution. He or she must have the ability to react quickly to a situation, craft capabilities and watch for early warnings of changes. In business, this is where risk management comes in.
A report on Business Insider, On the hot seat: 10 tech CEOs who could be fired tomorrow, examines major risk management missteps some executives have made while heading up a tech company.
According to the report, the following CEOs are expected to get the boot soon: Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, who has yet to demonstrate the social networking site is more monetizable than AIM or chat; Scott Thompson, Yahoo’s new CEO who is already wrestling with a proxy fight against shareholder activist Dan Loeb; and Andrew Mason, Groupon’s CEO who can’t seem to get the company’s financial reporting right – as a result, the ‘deal-of-the-day’ website is undergoing an investigation by the SEC.
‘These are strategic risk oversight and management on steroids – mostly about exploring how millions of people ‘stick’ to social media and then monetizing,’ says Brian Barnier, an industry analyst and risk management expert…”
This is an extract from Corporate Secretary, to read more: www.corporatesecretary.com
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Corporate Governance, Risk Management and CSR in Emerging Markets
Stratégies de gestion des risques pour un conseil d’administration
Source : corporatesecretary.com
Why boards need to adopt social media
Lucy P. Marcus is a board chair and non-executive director who is challenging conventional wisdom inside and outside the board room. She has emerged as the voice setting the agenda on future proofing boardrooms and companies around the world. The CEO of Marcus Venture Consulting, she is Professor of Leadership & Governance at IE Business School and she speaks and writes about boards and leadership. Lucy has been awarded the Thinkers 50 “Future Thinkers” Award.
Source : blogs.reuters.com
Staying ethical in a competitive world
“Ethisphere Institute, a New York City think tank, has unveiled its sixth annual list of the World’s Most Ethical Companies (WME).
The list identifies organizations with fair business practices and standards compared with their industry peers. Achieving this level of recognition can be a challenge for many companies because finding the right leadership to guide an organization through difficult economic times, while also meeting expectations for ethical conduct, is not always easy. This year, nearly 5,000 companies were nominated but only 145 made it onto the list. According to Ethisphere, the 2012 list includes representatives of more than three dozen industries, from aerospace to wind power, with 43 of the winners headquartered outside the US.
Ethisphere methodology includes measuring the nominated company’s governance structure against checklists from organizations like GovernanceMetrics International. If a company fails to have a ‘good’ rating due to bribery allegations, corporate citizenship, regulatory and ethical issues, it is automatically tossed out of the list.
This year’s first-time recipients included Hasbro, Realogy, Petco, Britain’s Ethical Fruit Co, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and Henry Schein, along with 31 others. Some 18 companies were removed from last year’s list this time due to ethical violations or lack of social responsibility initiatives.
The economic climate over the past several years has made it particularly difficult for top leaders and executives to land a place on the Ethisphere list. When the bottom line is under stress, other objectives can become secondary, or be completely ignored. Just look at the number of now-defunct firms and fraudulent activities the SEC and Department of Justice have cracked down on in the past year. For a firm to make it onto the WME list is, therefore, undoubtedly both an honor and an achievement.
Marriott International is one of the few companies to secure a hard-earned spot on the ethical companies list not once but five times in the past six years. So how does Marriott maintain its sharp focus on ethical practices in a highly competitive world?
Well, ethics is correlated with leadership and it all starts with the tone at the top. The company’s executive leadership in its Bethesda headquarters and in regional offices around the globe has set an example admired throughout the industry. In Marriott’s law department, general counsel and executive vice president Ed Ryan and his team have taken to heart the principle established by the hotel operator’s CEO and chairman John Willard Marriott (JW) and COO Arne Sorenson, as they have helped guide the company through some of its toughest times.”
This is an extract from Corporate Secretary, to read more: www.corporatesecretary.com
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Corporate Secretary role - preparing for high impact events
Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility
Evaluer la performance du conseil d’administration :
L’évaluation de la performance du conseil d’administration ou de chaque administrateur de façon individuelle est une tâche qui peut s’avérer complexe. En effet, on ne peut pas évaluer les performances du conseil comme on évalue celle d’un employé ou d’une entreprise. Il faut alors trouver d’autres bases d’évaluation.
L’auto-évaluation :
Il est souvent difficile de prendre du recul sur les décisions ou le travail effectués. Cependant une auto-évaluation régulière du conseil est nécessaire. En effet ceci permet à celui-ci de s’interroger sur ses performances et la qualité de son travail. Pour être pertinente cette auto-évaluation doit avoir lieu au moins une fois par an. Elle peut être menée par la secrétaire corporative ou par un comité de gouvernance suivant la taille de l’organisation. Elle peut porter sur le rôle du Conseil d’administration, ses activités, ses membres. Elle permet de décider si celui-ci a bien rempli sa mission et de juger de la qualité des documents et processus qui influencent sa performance. Cependant une auto-évaluation n’est pas suffisante pour évaluer de manière précise la performance du conseil.
Une évaluation indépendante :
Faire appel à un consultant indépendant permettra une meilleur évaluation de la performance du conseil et de ses membres. Une évaluation indépendante donne au conseil un point de vue extérieur qui n’est pas permis par l’auto-évaluation. Encore une fois par nécessité de pertinence, une évaluation indépendante devrait être effectuée au moins tous les deux ans (la durée d’un mandat étant de trois ans).
Quelques critères d’évaluation :
Voici une liste non exhaustive de critères pouvant être utilisés pour évaluer la performance du conseil :
Le taux de participation aux réunions.
La fréquence et la durée des réunions (respect des critères préétablis).
Qualité du travail d’équipe (qualité des échanges, fréquence des échanges, partage d’informations, etc.).
Le travail des comités a-t-il lieu suffisamment en amont pour permettre une réunion du conseil efficace ?
La taille du conseil et le nombre de comités est-il en accord avec la taille de l’organisation ?
Voici deux documents vous permettant d’effectuer une évaluation de votre conseil d’administration (peut être utilisé également pour un comité). Les évaluations du conseil d’administration sont plus une tradition anglo-saxonne que latine.
Comment améliorer l’efficacité de votre conseil d’administration ?
Création d’un comité
Source : leadingboards.com
Facebook : une gouvernance controversée
Photo : Agence France-Presse Justin Sullivan
A l’heure où l’introduction en bourse de Facebook approche, de nombreuses questions se posent et un certain nombre de griefs ont été fait à l’encontre de la gouvernance de Facebook.
La directrice de la gouvernance de la California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), s’est adressée directement à Mark Zuckerberg, déplorant l’absence de femme au CA de Facebook. La CalSTRS a également révélée ses inquiétudes quant au nombre d’administrateurs siégeant au CA de Facebook, trop peu nombreux étant donné la taille de l’organisation.
D’autres s’inquiètent également du fait que Mark Zuckerberg devienne à la fois CEO et président du conseil d’administration. Cette double casquette inquiète, en effet la direction de Facebook sera totalement centralisée. De plus il se réserve le droit de nommer son successeur le moment venu. Le fondateur et dirigeant de Facebook détient aujourd’hui 28% des actions de Facebook, représentant pas moins de 57% des votes.
On peut penser que ce sont des situations qui sont loin de nous, qui ne nous concernent pas vraiment, qu’il ny a pas lieu de s’inquiéter… mais ce n’est pas le cas. Des modèles à la Facebook s’appellent aussi Newscorp, Olympus et un peu plus loin Enron, Worldcom, Nortel, Vivendi-Universal. Et ces “modèles” affectent pas mal de monde, parlez-en au millions d’employés et au millions de retraités qui ont vu leurs pension fondre ou disparaître…
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Seven habits of spectacularly unsuccessful CEOs: The hall of shame
“So who are some recent examples of CEOs who have failed at these 7 habits?
I present to you the people I would consider Charter Members of the Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful CEOs Hall of Shame. Each of these men and women have earned the right to be part of this distinguished club. Many of their choices have been befuddling. Their attitudes at times have been head-scratching. Their arrogance has been breath-taking.
Let’s go through them by habit. And keep in mind that the worst CEOs always start by exhibiting one of these habits and then see them snowball into other habits over time…”
This is an extract from Financial Post, to read more: http://natpo.st/wz5x1x
Read more:
Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility
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Source : business.financialpost.com
