Your Course of Study
Through focused lectures and in-depth case studies, you and a group of distinguished peers will examine how effective boards build positive relationships and efficient processes. You will examine the most relevant strategic and organizational issues facing boards of directors today. Examples taken from companies in diverse industries will drive home the need for transparency, trust, and close cooperation between board members and the management team. Curriculum topics include:
Board Roles and Responsibilities
- Designing the most appropriate board structure, processes, and complement of directors
- Recruiting, motivating, and compensating the CEO
- Defining the legal responsibilities of directors
- Maximizing board productivity and cooperation between its members and the management team
Corporate Strategy Review
- Understanding the intricacies of the business model, how the company makes money, and the ways that a board can jeopardize a company
- Identifying the information and metrics that enable the board to approve and oversee company strategy
- Enhancing the board's role in strategic planning, goal setting, and initiating change
- Working with management to measure profitability against stated strategies for both short-term and long-range value creation
- Fixing broken strategies
- Planning for management succession
Regulatory Compliance and Reporting
- Formulating an external financial reporting and disclosure strategy
- Covering increasingly complex regulatory and reporting bases, while ensuring the company is moving in the right direction
- Evaluating compensation structures in light of recent regulatory actions
- Managing the shift to greater involvement from activist shareholders
Crisis Management
- Handling unanticipated company crises, such as hostile or friendly takeovers, CEO departures, and firings
- Separating reputational risk from the ethical imperative to do what is best for the company
- Uncovering and responding to indications of malfeasance or other misconduct
- Dealing with exposure to both known and unknown risks
Effective Meetings and Informed Decision Making
- Leading constructive, consensus-building board meetings with time-efficient agendas
- Understanding how interactions among the directors and their backgrounds can impact decision making and outcomes
- Building the right board structure to develop an effective functioning group rather than a collection of independently operating individuals
"Frankly, I was skeptical that Making Corporate Boards More Effective would be of much value since I have been on boards for the last
20 years. My biases were quickly overcome. I want to compliment HBS on the quality course materials, the lively classroom dialogues,
and the knowledge that the faculty brought to the table—I returned to my board duties enlightened."
Marc Oken [Managing Partner], Falfurrias Capital Partners, U.S.