The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) has agreed to acquire Directorship LLC which includes NACD Directorship magazine, www.Directorship.com, the Global Boardroom Forum and the Directorship 100 Forum, the NACD announced this morning. Jeffrey M. Cunningham, CEO and editorial director of Directorship, joins the NACD as managing director and senior advisor.
The NACD board unanimously approved the transaction.
“As the current environment is rapidly changing and expanding the needs of directors, the new combined organization will enable us to better leverage our intellectual capital and extend our service leadership position with our members, business partners and stakeholders,” said Kenneth Daly, president and CEO of the NACD. “NACD is dedicated to improving our members’ knowledge, skills and performance. Bringing together our resources with Directorship’s will further extend NACD’s position as the ‘Voice of the Director.’”
The combined NACD and Directorship platform will help build greater awareness among director members of their duties and the public’s expectations. The NACD will emphasize the board’s need to take anticipatory action with its unparalleled intellectual capital and content-contribution engine that will better help define and drive leading practices for boards.
The transaction represents a significant strategic move to leverage the combined expertise through additional director education opportunities such as peer-to-peer exchanges, digital publishing and networking programs, which will expand and improve the director pool. Being a director is demanding, information intensive and time consuming. Directorship provides more value for NACD members and more reasons for directors to join and participate in a larger community.
“We at Directorship are excited about our future with NACD as one organization in which leading board directors can more easily access the widest range of resources in the areas of director education, corporate governance news, and boardroom research. The combination will clearly enhance NACD’s role as the go-to partner for directors seeking to build a more dynamic board culture and drive efficiency and effectiveness in the boardroom,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham bought Directorship magazine five years ago and since has built the publication, its events and directorship.com into the leading resource for director news and information. Directorship’s formal relationship with the NACD began in February 2009 when the bimonthly was named the official magazine of the NACD.