It’s Proxy Season 2009. All sights are set on annual meetings as committee chairs everywhere prepare—anticipating specific shareholder questions about board processes and plans.
But beneath all of these details are fundamentals even more important than the hot topics of the day.
In the last issue, I called your attention to NACD’s “Key Agreed Principles to Strengthen Corporate Governance for Publicly Traded Companies.” Now it’s time to build on them. NACD, America’s membership organization for directors, is announcing “A Challenge for Corporate Directors: Renew Commitment to Corporate Governance and Oversight Excellence.”
I recognize that the majority of our membership is performing well, but the recent financial-sector collapse has diminished public and investor confidence in publicly traded companies and we must all make a renewed commitment to corporate governance and oversight excellence.
NACD is challenging not just our 10,000 members, but every board and individual director to lead the charge in improving board performance and corporate oversight by strengthening governance in boardrooms across the country. And it begins with assessing current performance and taking measures to improve.
This campaign is a call to action to urge all boards to assess their current performance. We urge boards to:
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Embrace NACD’s Key Agreed Principles and use them as a framework for determining board practices and as a tool that can be adapted to each board’s specific needs
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Assess the board’s practices with an emphasis in four critical areas: executive compensation, risk oversight, corporate strategy, and transparency
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Commit to continuous director education and knowledge exchange around NACD’s Key Agreed Principles and leading practices that have been identified by NACD white papers
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Provide greater transparency by annually sharing board progress on these commitments
NACD will report on the progress of U.S. boards that have accepted this challenge on a quarterly and yearly basis.
It is time for directors to embrace their responsibility on corporate boards and lead this charge. To learn more and participate in the campaign, visit www.nacdonline.org today. The time is now.