-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 May 2010
John M Green
suggests it may not be the proxy advisory firms that are the problem, but some of the institutions that hire them.
Proxy by proxy
During each year’s annual general meeting season, directors come out blasting at corporate governance proxy advisory firms. It’s mostly d...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 May 2010
Proxy advisers have come under attack recently, accused of being poorly resourced, not having the expertise to handle complex issues and using a tick-the-box approach.
Tony Featherstone
weighs into the debate and discovers there are two sides to the story.
Too much sway...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Aug 2009
Letters to the editor
I read Tony Featherstone’s article on ‘Unseating the founder’ (Company Director, June 2009) with great interest. As with any good article, the title was provocative and the content worthy of reflection. Here are a couple of probing questions that add to those raised in the art...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2009
Tony Featherstone
investigates why the founders of some family owned companies resist forming a board, and the benefits they may be missing out on.
Opening the family board to NEDs
Key points
A family company board poses unique challenges
Founders struggle w...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Sep 2008
Just like a marriage, the relationship between boards and CEOs can have its ups and downs.
Domini Stuart
provides tips on how to nurture and build this union, and on how to end it if all else fails.
Through thick or thin
At best, the relationship between a company’s board of dire...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Aug 2008
Ken Moss
discussed the role that power and authority play in a board’s relationship with its CEO at a recent AICD lunch in Perth. Here’s an excerpt of what he had to say.
Power and authority in the boardroomMany political figures have hung onto power for perhaps too long, including the li...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Apr 2008
With grey clouds rapidly gathering on the economic horizon,
Domini Stuart
provides some tips on how to weather the storms they carry.
Battening down the hatches
The heat is on. Fallout from the US subprime crisis has brought an end to an unprecedented period of prosperity and gro...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Mar 2008
A seemingly insatiable hunger for corporate information may be encouraging a tendency towards short-termism. Janine Mace examines whether Australian companies are dishing up too much data to investors on their outlook.
Don’t super size me
The current reporting season has opened on a subdued no...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Feb 2008
Richard Hewson
explains how the subtleties of human comfort zones can upset the relationship between CEOs and boards.
Discomfort zone
Is the relationshipbetween your board and your CEO as effective as you would want? When the board and the executives of an organisation are not...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Sep 2007
Six years ago, Pasminco crashed and burned. Domini Stuart details how building a strong board helped Zinifex rise from its ashes.
Rising from the ashes
On 20 September, 2001, Pasminco was dismissed on ABC radio as the latest in a string of once-distinguished Australian companies either to have...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jul 2007
What is that special mix that makes a successful company and how do directors contribute to it? Domini Stuart approaches four leading directors for clues.
The X factor
Success is rarely a smooth ride. Many of our leading companies have weathered storms that might have felled other organisation...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Nov 2006
John Massey is as comfortable in the nursery caring for newborn babies as he is in the boardroom building multimillion dollar enterprises – but are these worlds as different as they seem? Nichola Clark reports.
The nurture of business
John Massey likes to describe himself as ‘a formalised e...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Oct 2006
Robert Elstone, Elizabeth Johnstone and Charles Macek argue that directors need to be courageous in encouraging management to adopt a long term strategic focus – and not focus entirely on short-term financial performance.
Some challenges for directors in short termism
In previous articles we c...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Aug 2006
Boards share equal and collective responsibility
Jeff Lucy, the chairman of ASIC, is someone who commands a good deal of respect at AICD. However, we disagree profoundly with him with regard to his views on the Greaves case, expressed in a letter to the Australian Financial Review on 30 May. (A ful...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2006
Directors cannot afford to be ignorant of development in IT – but they should concentrate on the business case for implementing new technology and not be overwhelmed by confusing jargon. Domini Stuart reports.
Coming to grips with IT
As recently as the seventies, IT was nothing more than an ex...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Oct 2005
The key to more effective boardsisn’t given in the rules
The greatest challenges boards face is the way people engage with each other in the process of doing what has to be done, not the tasks themselves, says Sarah Cornally*
When people come together in a group there are a lot of forces at play. Th...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Sep 2005
All the wrong way with LBJ
It is called the LBJ effect, a course of action named after the American president who put more resources into the Vietnam war even though it was clear the war could not be won. As Larry Stybel and Maryanne Peabody* explain, the LBJ effect also explains some corporate beha...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2005
The first and often only reaction from governments to abhorrent corporate behaviour - however isolated the incident - is to enact new legislation and give the regulators more power. But has this rush to legislative judgment gone too far and become a threat to the economy and an unforeseen cost burde...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2005
The chief executive "drives the bus" and the chairman "collects the fares". This the shorthand description Malcolm Irving, chairman of e-payments company Keycorp, ascribes to the crucial relationship between chairman and CEO at a Directors Briefing in Sydney in April. The crucial CEO/chair dynamic
...
-
Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2005
We have said earlier that the duties of directors are well defined in the law and don’t need change. Let’s consider some consequences of the duties.
Directors have a collective responsibility for the company as a whole. Shareholders put the fate of their company in directors’ hands. Through the CEO ...