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In today’s complex and interrelated global business environment, the board’s first responsibility is always to help drive performance and build economic momentum. But this year, boards are charged with a new task of equal importance – to help regain society’s trust.

It would be an understatement to call this a time of challenge.

The lessons of the economic crisis of 2008 and the recent recovery will assure that all board directors are rethinking strategy, business models, leadership, and corporate governance philosophies. It is for these reasons that we will gather the leading boardroom executives and governance professionals for a wide-ranging and strategic discussion on the future of the boardroom and the “new voices” that will shape its course.

Now in its 10th year, the Directorship Forum has become the foremost gathering in the director community, bringing together the leading business minds, including board directors, corporate officers, and dignitaries, who are critical to establishing the direction for our country’s recovery of vitality and economic prosperity. These luminaries include board directors from American Express, AT&T, Boeing, Coca-Cola, GE, Exxon Mobil, Home Depot, Novartis, P&G, Pfizer, and Yum! Brands.

At the Directorship Forum, you will meet and interact with White House officials, CEOs, chairmen, and governance professionals such as: Ken Feinberg, Obama Administration Compensation Master; Chief Justice Myron Steele; Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein; Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting moderators: CNBC’s Becky Quick and New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin; legal legend Marty Lipton; Harvard’s Jay Lorsch; Spencer Stuart’s Thomas J. Neff and Julie Daum; Fortune 500 board directors Maggie Wilderotter and Ursula Fairbairn; former Fidelity president and MFS chairman Bob Pozen, and GE’s former General Counsel Ben Heineman. Our delegates will meet in plenary and peer exchange sessions to share ways in which the best and brightest boards surmount these challenges and to take a detailed look at the vital plans and processes that will be deployed to drive growth and recovery in businesses around the world.

This year, the Directorship Forum is based on four content pillars:

Board Director Peer Exchange Roundtables
The Directorship 100 Boardroom Leaders
Ask The Experts – The Top Corporate Governance Leaders
CEO of the Year & the Fortune 500 CEO Symposium

Peer Exchanges
More than 100 leading directors will gather to discuss every major area of board responsibility, facilitated by leading global experts on boardroom issues. Each member will have an opportunity to pose questions and react to positions. There will be two consecutive sessions and directors can choose from the following topics:

*Audit Committee best practices
*CEO development and succession
*Compensation trends
*Crisis communications
*Regulation and compliance
*Restructuring
*Risk management

The Directorship 100 – The Most Influential Voices in the Boardroom
Each year, Directorship identifies the most influential people in the boardroom among directors and officers, as well as corporate governance experts, journalists, regulators, academics, and counselors who have had the greatest impact on how the board operates. Reviving economic growth remains a priority for policy makers and directors alike. Therefore, our program will bring together such incisive and influential voices in the boardroom as Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s compensation master; Chief Justice Myron Steele of the Delaware Supreme Court; Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs; Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times editor of DealBook; Maggie Wilderotter, chairman and CEO of Frontier Communications and a director of Procter & Gamble, Yahoo, Xerox, and Tribune Co.; and Ursula Fairbairn, director of Centex, Sunoco, and VF Corp. These are the ranks of those who will pave the way forward for all boards, and help us work through these times of uncertainty and risk so that we can emerge stronger and more focused, and return to our main goal of driving successful strategies.

Ask The Experts – Board Committee Best Practices
These sessions will focus on the three major board committee platforms of Compensation Committee philosophy, Nominating Committee excellence, and Audit Committee risk management best practices. They will reveal changes in regulation, litigation, and how the smartest boards guided by the most expert professionals are meeting governance challenges effectively, while moving their business models forward. These sessions provide an important opportunity for chief executives and directors to discuss and share ideas on the changes in the boardroom with the experts charting the new direction to meet these formidable challenges successfully.

CEO of the Year Keynote & How the Fortune 500 CEOs view Global M&A
Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, has been named 2009 CEO of the Year and his firm, Goldman Sachs, as the best performing and best governed company in the Fortune 500, according to Directorship’s annual survey of readers and editorial advisory council. At our  luncheon, Blankfein will address a national assembly of leading board directors, chief executives, and investors on the most pressing issues facing business today, including his views on risk management, corporate governance, and the prospects for recovery and growth. Following the CEO of the Year keynote, we have arranged a panel of CEOs and other experts to discuss their views on global M&A, antitrust issues, and how the cconomic outlook will affect strategic decisions.

Please join us for the most important board director gathering of the year at the 2009 Directorship Forum on November 16 and 17 at the Metropolitan Club in New York City.