Ethics, Environmental and Social

The Crisis in Healthcare Boardrooms

June 5,2008 by Robert Gadaleta
Politicians frequently speak of the healthcare crisis in America. Although most discussions focus on the lack of health insurance or proper care for uninsured patients, there is another crisis brewing in the boardrooms of healthcare institutions across America. Increasingly, healthcare organizations and their boards of directors are under intensifying scrutiny from government regulators, politicians, and the plaintiffs’ bar. Full Story

Board Meetings in Pajamas

April 1,2008 by Matt Perkins
No assembly required for these board meetings. Using what have been dubbed “board portals,” either created in-house or by outside providers, some directors are virtually moving the board process online. Full Story

Fraud's Red Flags

April 1,2008 by Michael Ross
If the massive $7-billion alleged fraud at French bank Societe Generale teaches us anything, it is that fraud is always a possibility. It can be perpetrated at almost any level, from the corner office to a rogue mid-level employee. Full Story

Environment is Everything

February 1,2008
Innovation is not often thought of as a boardroom preoccupation. But conduct even a cursory review of companies where innovation success is sustained and what you find is a veritable culture of innovation that is integrally bound to the boardroom. So how can directors assure that the companies on whose boards they serve are innovative? Is there a way to quantify innovation? How can a director motivate management to be innovative? And how then does management spur innovation through its ranks? Full Story

Fiorina on What's Best for Boards

December 1,2007
The first female CEO of a Fortune 20 company, Carly Fiorina’s rise and fall at Hewlett-Packard was nothing short of spectacular. The first outsider chosen to lead the decades-old technology company, Fiorina, hired in 1999 as a change agent, arrived at the height of the dot-com boom. Full Story

An Advocate for a Culture of Integrity In and Out of the Boardroom

October 1,2007
Kenneth Starr was thrust into the limelight when he was appointed Independent Counsel investigating first Whitewater and its successor, the Monica Lewinsky affair. Starr spoke to Directorship during the magazine’s annual Boardroom Forum earlier this year about his lengthy legal career, his time in the public eye, the current make-up of the Supreme Court, and what all directors should know about the Constitution. Full Story

Boardroom Focus on Immigration

October 1,2007 by Dowell Myers
Although in recent years illegal immigration has exploded as a nationwide concern, most of the discussion has been focused on the more politically charged issues. That debate, so far, has shed more heat than light on the topic. Full Story

Who's the Best? And Other Collected Thoughts

October 1,2007 by Jeff Cunningham
Admittedly, Americans are a competitive breed. From trying to outdo the Joneses to hard charging on the athletic field, few pursuits are greeted with more enthusiasm than trying to be the best. CEOs of large companies are no different: Managing a global enterprise is among the most challenging of all activities, and they like to try to outdo each other. Full Story