Expertise
Board & Governance
A family company's board is asked to do something unusual: hold management to account while serving owners who are often in the room.
I advise chairs and owning families on the composition of the board, the recruitment and induction of independent directors, the definition of what the board decides and what it does not, and the information it receives in order to decide well.
Governance in a family company fails quietly rather than dramatically. It fails when the board becomes ceremonial, when the family's authority is exercised outside it, or when independent directors are appointed for their names rather than their judgement. The work is to make the board the place where the company is genuinely governed.
I also advise on the chairmanship itself, the separation of chair and chief executive, the succession of the chair, and the particular difficulty of a family chair holding a non-family chief executive to account.
