On Boards Podcast
Joe Ayoub & Raza Shaikh
All episodes
Best episodes
Seasons
Top 10 On Boards Podcast Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best On Boards Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to On Boards Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite On Boards Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
3. Yvonne Schlaeppi and the Importance of Corporate Strategy
On Boards Podcast
02/15/20 • 33 min
Yvonne Schlaeppi is passionate about corporate strategy, and she believes it’s one of the most important things a board can do for their company. Spending a significant amount of time on board work, across many companies and several continents, Yvonne is highly experienced and enthusiastic in her work as a board member.
Having built a strong background working on boards in the U.S., UK and Europe, Yvonne shares her insight into the differences in boards across countries, how to navigate difficult decisions, and what we can learn from observing other boards in action.
Thanks for listening!
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Big Ideas
Differences in structures and culture between U.S. and European boards. [08:27]
What we can learn from observing other boards. [22:31]
Quotes
“I do believe that being more present and involved and learning more about the company and what it’s going through makes for a more effective board.” [05:45]
“Most boards would be well-served to spend more time on strategy, which is really where they can make their best contribution.” [27:27]
“The baseline for good board practice is to ensure, as best as you can as a board member, that your board undertakes decision-making in a deliberative, prudential and reasoned way.” [30:03]
2. Rick Williams on Trust: Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset
On Boards Podcast
02/01/20 • 28 min
It’s easy to think of companies as big, faceless organizations, valued only for profit margins or stock potential. But it’s precisely when organizations are viewed only by the numbers, and not by the people working within them, that company culture suffers and things can go south.
Rick Williams knows that the key to success is creating an atmosphere of openness and trust that makes for a great board of directors or advisors, and a healthy company overall. Rick spent many years as a consultant, founded his own real estate investment company, and returned to consulting once again. He has been an executive, board member and board chair - in addition to mentoring CEO’s. Now authoring his first book, Create the Future For Your Company and Yourself, Rick shares his most valuable insights into corporate culture and governance boards – namely that the best thing you can do for your company is to honor the people within it.
Links
Quotes
“It’s a very human process...The truth is [companies] are collections of people working together.” [06:42]
“You have to be somebody who’s an empathetic listener.” [11:40]
“The leader has to set cultural expectations. So it has to be expectations for openness, trust, willingness to actually engage in difficult conversations. That’s where the culture part of it comes in.” [20:42]
Big Ideas
The nexus of Williams’ new book and how it can benefit companies as a whole. [06:56]
Creating an atmosphere of faith in transition of leadership. [11:30]
How to develop a culture of trust and openness. [21:04]
Thanks for listening!
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
58. The groundbreaking, impactful work of The Partnership
On Boards Podcast
10/03/23 • 36 min
Pratt Wiley is the CEO of the Partnership, a 35 year old organization whose mission is to provide leadership development for professionals and executives of color across every stage of a professional's career life cycle. In this episode we will hear about the incredibly impactful work The Partnership has done, and continues to do, to change the lives of many talented people – and the communities in which we live.
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Big Ideas/Thoughts/Quotes
The Partnership provides leadership development for professionals and executives of color across every stage of a professional's career life cycle.
We work with companies and organizations to help craft and influence corporate culture, which is what we believe is truly the most important competitive advantage that an organization can have.
We focus on what we call community - - being very intentional creating relationships of peers and mentors and sponsors and advocates, who are important for both professional advancement as well as personal fulfillment.
BoardLink
BoardLink started with nonprofits knocking on our door asking us if we had any board candidates that we could share with them. They were looking to diversify their board, but they weren't sufficiently connected to networks to be able to identify and recruit diverse talent themselves, and so that's what BoardLink is.
It is taking these networks of incredibly talented and accomplished executives of color and connecting them with organizations, nonprofits and for-profits that are looking for great board candidates and especially those who are people of color.
Impact
The Partnership was formed in 1987, since then 35 years of programs and 6,500 alumni who have gone through those programs, and you'd be hard pressed to find a prominent leader of color in Massachusetts - in a lot of corporate spaces - who aren't either a graduate of our program or one of the folks who helped create it in the first place.
There are a number of ways that we measure impact. The easiest to measure - probably one end of the spectrum - is retention and advancement.
We don't want to look at these programs as golden handcuffs, and so our folks advancing professionally is another piece of data that we look at, and we have similar numbers there.
Our alumni are CEOs and Chief Justices. They're entrepreneurs. They're leading Fortune 100 companies. They are leaders in healthcare and consumer products and financial services
To an extent the real value of an organization like The Partnership, that thing that we can provide that no one else provides, is this safe space that can serve as a safety net for so many of our participants that both catches you when you fall, but even more so encourages you to take greater risks knowing that there is that support system behind you.
Family Impact
My mother took over The Partnership after it had been in existence for about three or four years. There had not been a proof of concept in terms of, is this an economically viable organization. It was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was a moment not too dissimilar from this one where you had corporate leaders who were saying, "You know, we've tried this for a couple of years, and now it's time for us to move on to something else."
My sister and I still remember that it might not have been her first day, but it was one of her first days. She picked us up from school and then we went back to the office, and I started unpacking boxes and putting files away in the cabinet and I joked that The Partnership really was built on child labor for a number of years.
When I moved back to Boston I had this weird existence where not a week would go by where someone wouldn't stop me on the street and say, "I went through The Partnership when your mom was running it, and it changed my life."
or
"I was at this crossroads in my career and your mom had coffee with me and she helped me see the direction that I should take."
or
"I had gone through a major setback and your mom, or my dad as well, they were the ones who picked up the phone and called so-and-so and said, 'Hey, I've got a great candidate for you.'"
Impact of the Pandemic
Prior to the pandemic, the first 30-plus years of our existence, our programs were always in a physical location. By the time I took over, we would be hosted by many of our client companies. Starting in 2020, we could no longer do that, and so everything moved onto Zoom - - and I had never heard of Zoom before.
I sent an email to my board letting them know that we were going to be working remotely for the next couple of weeks as the pandemic sort of runs its course. One of my board members is Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, and one of her...
02/15/23 • 25 min
Melissa Sampson McMorrow chairs the Tax Department at the law firm of Nutter McClennen & Fish and co-chairs Nutter’s Nonprofit and Social Impact Practice Group. In this episode we talk about models of governance structures for Impact Philanthropy Enterprises - ranging from Newman’s Own to Patagonia. We also discuss Massachusetts guidelines for diversity, equity, and inclusion on the boards of Massachusetts charities.
Thanks for listening!
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Links:
New York Times Article about Patagonia
Big Ideas/Thoughts/Quotes:
About Nutter - Nutter McClennen & Fish is a Boston-based law firm that was founded over 150 years ago by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. The firm carries on his legacy today by providing high-quality legal counsel to industry-leading companies, entrepreneurs, institutions, foundations, and families across the country.
Changing landscape of Impact Philanthropy - As the world has become more complicated and as the profile of donors has evolved, you see more engagement from donors, and you see donors drawing on different tools and approaches to accomplish their charitable objectives.
Donors want to give more than money - .. What you're really seeing is donors, many of whom are successful entrepreneurs, really wanting to use those skills and know-how and apply it in world of philanthropy where they can really make an impact, not just giving money, but with aligning with their goals.
Newman’s Own Model - Newman's Own was Paul Newman's company and anyone who walked down the salad dressing aisle of a grocery store knows that Paul Newman gave some percentage of the profits that his for-profit company made to charity every year.
Fast forward to his death, how does he keep this going after he's gone? Well, what he did was he, bin very simple terms, gave his company to his charitable foundation...
A wise mentor of mine once said to me, if you don't like the law, change it, and that's what they did. They lobbied Congress and they changed the law, and so they were able to end up with a structure that is available to everyone, not just Newman's Own, that would allow a foundation to continue to operate a for-profit business.
How the Patagonia Model is Different – There are a few aspects that distinguish what at first blush might seem like a similar arrangement to the Newman's Own arrangement, with few key distinctions. The first distinction of the Patagonia example is that the family is able to maintain control of the business. They don't own it or have an economic ownership interest in it, but there is a control element that is not present in the Newman's Own situation.
Massachusetts Guidelines on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Non-Profits -Massachusetts has had a guidebook for nonprofit organizations, particularly charitable organizations, for a long time. It was most recently updated in 2022, and I think it's really interesting where they chose to put the focus in their updates.
Really, it's on first, education, second paying attention to the financial workings of the organization and then third -and arguably most important -, paying attention to how you build your board and how that board carries out its duty in executing the organization's mission.
Louis Brandeis on Progress - If you'll permit me a quote by the founder of our firm, Louis Brandeis, our DEI strategic plan is guided by a quote of his as follows, "In differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress," and I think that rings true today as well.
12/21/23 • 35 min
Jocelyn Moore, a seasoned board member and former NFL executive, shares her diverse career experiences from Capitol Hill to the boardrooms of major technology companies like DraftKings and OppFi. Jocelyn discusses the intricate journey that led her to influential roles in corporate governance, emphasizing the importance of diversity in leadership and the ethical implications of AI in decision-making. This episode not only explores Jocelyn's remarkable career trajectory, but also delves into the broader implications of board composition and technology in modern corporate environments.
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Big Ideas/Thoughts/Quotes:
What was your NFL experience like?
It was like nothing else that I've ever done. Such a tremendous lesson in the art of diplomacy with varying stakeholders, which has prepared me for a lot of the board service that I do now.
Is bipartisanship in Congress possible?
“I'll tell you that I think is really emblematic of how I grew up on Capitol Hill. In [Senator] Zell Miller's office, we had Democrats and Republicans both working in that office - - our political leanings didn't matter, we were all working for the people of Georgia, and that's something that really stuck with me during the 15 years that I worked in the Senate.”
Power of the network leading to DraftKings board
“Roberta Sidney, who you will know, and many in the audience will know - she is amazing. I've never met Roberta, she and I get on a call. We talked about the board opportunity and this particular board was not a good fit. But you know what Roberta did, because she is such a champion of people, a champion of women, she said, "Look, this may not be a good fit, but I'm going to introduce you to my friend Ilana Wolfe.” Ilana is at Goldman and is the driving force behind board diversification at Goldman's portfolio companies.
I talked to Ilana and, little did I know at the time, she was this giant in the space. We talked. I told her about my background, and we left it at that. After about a month went by, she called me back and said, "Hey, Jocelyn, I have this interesting board opportunity that I wanted to run by you -have you heard of the company DraftKings?"”
DraftKings Board Composition as it went Public
Like most public companies before they are public, the board was largely comprised of investors, and I joined soon after it went public in April of 2022. The makeup of the board changed as DraftKings became a public company.
DraftKings' commitment to inclusion, equity and belonging is very strong. At the same time that I joined the board, Valerie Mosley, a giant in Boston, joined the board, so two black women joined the board of DraftKings at the same time, and Michael Jordan became an advisor.
Importance of a board with diverse perspectives
“Board diversity is not a nice to have. It is a must have.”
“When you think about your customer base, whether it's DraftKings, OppFi, whatever company we're talking about, when we look at the makeup of America, it is extraordinarily diverse. When we think about how we create and generate revenue, how we sustain revenue, how we create long-term value, all of those things are dependent upon our customer base. If we do not embrace diversity, we are not maximizing our revenue potential. It is as simple as that.”
Angel Investing
“Entrepreneurs power our economy. They are the ones who are the job creators in our country, and so to understand business and industry, you really have to go where business and industries are. And so that's why it was important for me to get involved with venture investing and angel investing to get a front row seat to industry in ways that I could have never imagined.”
From the On Boards Summit 2023: The coming wave of Artificial Intelligence (AI): What questions should boards be asking?
· How will your company or board be impacted by AI?
· How can we use AI in the future not only internally to improve processes and the sharing of information and data, but also externally in the markets that we are in to improve the client experience, to extend whatever we are doing from a market standpoint?
· We know that AI has shown biases. What are the questions that we, as good corporate citizens, need to ask about the ethics of AI?
How do we best provide guardrails around AI?
30. Family businesses: the most successful, long-lasting and impactful businesses in the world
On Boards Podcast
11/15/21 • 46 min
Rob and Josh are each co-founders of BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors which advises family owners on business, finance, ownership, philanthropy, and a wide range of other issues. They are each leaders in the field of family-owned business. They recently co-authored the Harvard Business School publication: “Family Business Handbook: How to Build and Sustain a Successful, Enduring Enterprise.”
Thanks for listening!
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Links
Why the 21st Century Will Belong To Family Businesses
Build a Family Business that Lasts
Order the HBR Family Business Handbook
Quotes
Family Business Myths/Facts
Myth: Family businesses don’t really matter.
Fact: “About 90% of all businesses in the United States are family owned and they account for about 50% of all employment.”
Myth: Family businesses don't last, after three generations, they're doomed to fail.
Fact: “Family businesses last longer on average than other forms of ownership. Some of the longest lasting and most successful businesses in the world are family businesses. Why don't Americans know that?”
Joe: Josh, why do you think that the myth that family businesses are less successful, that they never get beyond the third generation, why does that persist?
Josh: It's a great scare tactic, I think you keep hearing it is because people want to tell you, "You're doomed to fail and therefore you need my help to be able to overcome it."
Myth: Family businesses are rife with conflicts - family members are fighting and suing each other and just can't possibly get along
Fact: “Most family businesses struggle not from having too much conflict, but from too little conflict, because it's really hard to raise some of these issues about fairness and compensation and all the things that come in as being part of a family business.”
Rob: It's strange, but the celebrity or the business celebrities, when I went to business school, Jack Welch, and he was making a brand for himself. Now, it's Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook or Elon Musk at Tesla. They seek the publicity. I would say most all of the family business that we know the owners, they shy away from publicity. They don't want to be the face of their family business. They actually know the downside that can come with that.
Josh: Most family businesses are private companies and the word "private" is there for a reason, that they don't want to be public. They see advantages in being below the radar. I was visiting a family business recently in a state out west and I drive up to the headquarters and I was like, "That can't be it. We must have the address wrong. That can't possibly be the headquarters of a billion dollar company." And of course, it was.
“One of the amazing things about family businesses is that they can break the rules in a way and practice business in a way that is fundamentally different than other companies.”
“Family business owners can, if they choose, own it for their whole lifetime and maybe set it up for their next generation. It's the difference between maybe renting an apartment or even being in an Airbnb overnight - you're day trading versus owning a home that you're hoping to bequeath to your children.”
Unlike other companies, family businesses actually talk about longevity. How often do you hear companies outside of the world of family businesses talking about how many generations do you last? Do we put like a second or third generation as if that's just a low number, but then you have to multiply it by 20 or 30 years and you realize that a third-generation family business has probably been around for a hundred years.
Josh: People say: "Oh, most family businesses don't make it for a hundred years and therefore they're doomed to fail." I'm like, "No, no, most businesses last for under a year, maybe five years."
Joe: Their success is actually used as a way of talking about their failure when it's not really a failure at all.
What we find in family businesses is that core decisions are really made at the owner level in family businesses, not like publicly-traded companies. If you don't like what's going on at GM, you sell GM and you're out and it wasn't really hard to sell. With a family business you're in. So, you're going to work really hard to make the owner decisions the right decisions.
The rights that come with that ownership are profound, the ability to influence the company in ways that are positive and ...
34. Boardroom Bound with host Alexander Lowry
On Boards Podcast
01/15/22 • 27 min
Alexander Lowry is a professor at Gordon College in Wenham Massachusetts where he is the Executive Director of the Master’s in Financial Analysis program and the creator, voice and driving force behind ”Boardroom Bound” - a weekly podcast about boards of directors, how to become a board member, how to excel at the job and the important impact that boards have on business and our society.
Thanks for listening!
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Links
Gordon College Masters of Science in Financial Analysis
Recommended Books
Authored by Boardroom Bound Guests
Governance in the Digital Age/Dottie Schillinger
Dare to Serve/ Cheryl Batchelder
Be Board Ready and Behind Boardroom Doors/ Betsy Atkins
Boards That Lead/ Ram Charan, Dennis Carey, and Michael UseemAuthored by On Boards Guests
The Board Members Guide to Risk/David Koenig
High Performance Boards/Didier Cossin
Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business/Matt Blumberg
Our Common Ground: Insights From Four Years of Listening to American Voters/Diane Hessan
Quotes
Boards are one of the most important things in the business world and people weren't talking about - that’s what led me to start Boardroom Bound.
If someone says, "Help me get a board seat," that's like saying, "Help me get a job.” I don't know what to do with that. What industry you want to work in? What size of company? Is it compensated, non-compensated, public versus private? There are all these sorts of things you have to help me figure out to know what you should do, and it only then that I can even begin to start giving you guidance. It’s as if I went to you guys and said, "Guys, help me get a job," you’d say, "What does it mean?"
Even after you have given some thought to getting a board seat, I would test you a little bit. All right, so tell me what's most important. Is it the compensation?" And some people would say, yes. I appreciate their honesty, but that's not a good driver for it. "But okay, if it is the compensation, what do you think you're going to make in what are you trying to do?" "Well, I want to be on the board of JP Morgan and make $250,000 a year." I'm like, "Hmm. What kind of size company did you work in?"
”I worked at a bunch of startups." "Well, that's probably not realistic. Let's take what you came up with and let's talk about reality. You're probably not going to be on a board with a company cap size bigger than where you’ve worked before.
If, for example, you have only worked in private companies, then you should focus on that. There are lots of different opportunities there. I would take exactly what you said, Joe, let's dive into it a little bit more, make sure we're all coming from the same page, and then you can come up with a game plan to do it.
Once you've got that, okay, networking is going to be a big part of it. For some people that's a dirty word. It doesn't need to be a d...
25. Guy Primus: Accelerate Board Diversification Now!
On Boards Podcast
05/01/21 • 31 min
Thanks for listening!
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Links
Quotes
“For too long Black professionals have been marching to the beat of someone else's drummer. So, what we want to do at Valence is create new paths where people can recognize their contributions, their excellence, bring that to the table and have that be recognized by the organizations that they're a part of.”
“The idea for the Board Challenge came from my friend, Brad Gerstner, his thought was: "Hey, how do I affect change on a macro level so that there are more black representatives on boards.” We're starting with black board members, but the ultimate goal is to have more diverse boards in general.”
Big Ideas/Thoughts
There are two ways to take The Board Challenge pledge. One is if you don't have a black board member you are pledging to add a black board member within 12 months of taking the pledge. So, that is how we are going to get more black board members on companies, recognizing, "Hey, I don't have one. This is a good chance for me to add one. I'm going to take the Pledge. I'm going to make a public pronouncement of my desire and I'm going to be held accountable."
If your board already has a Black board member, then you can take the Pledge to support our movement because you know it's important for society, it's important for the boards that we sit on to actually make sure that they are representative, and it’s good for the country, for the economy and for corporate America in general.
There are still a hundred S&P 500 companies that don't have a single black board member, so that's a good place to start, but our goal ultimately is fully representative boards in all public and private companies, that's where we want to get to. But if you tell people that," Hey, we want a representative board" the inaction probably will dwarf the level of action, so right now we’re focused on adding black board members.
Valence is also helping to solve the perceived issue of a lack of qualified board talent by introducing board service as an aspiration to the members of our BONDS executive development community. Black professionals need to start thinking about serving on boards early, and not wait until they are ready to retire to begin preparing themselves for board service.
60. Lisa Thompson - Becoming an impactful board member
On Boards Podcast
11/16/23 • 33 min
Lisa Spadafora Thompson the founder and CEO of Sturbridge Growth Partners, a virtual network of consultants, thought leaders, and practitioner specializing in growth strategies, talks about her experience as a consultant and how she has used those skill to become an impactful board member.
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Links:
Bio: linkedin.com/in/lisa-spadafora-thompson
Articles:
Big Ideas/Thoughts/Quotes:
Sturbridge Growth Partners
Lisa founded Sturbridge Growth Partners to serve companies in various B2B industries with customized, actionable strategies without the high fees of large consulting firms.
“Strategic pricing in B2B markets involves understanding the value you create for customers and how to maximize the value capture in the form of price.”
Board members should ask leadership more questions about how much economic value they create for customers, whether they’re maximizing the amount they can capture, and whether they’re negotiating with customers in ways that drive competitive advantage.”
Monitor Group
Lisa served on the board of The Monitor Group, a consulting firm acquired by Deloitte.
“Six years after joining The Monitor Group, I was elected to the board of directors by my peers, who were the other partners in the firm.
Shortly after winning, one of the most senior partners in the firm said, “You know why you won, right?” I laughed and said, “No, why don’t you tell me.” He said, "Because you have the ability to take on the important and contentious issues, and you need a lot of courage to do that on a board. You have that courage. That's why you got elected. Don't ever forget that.’”
What did you learn as a board member during the process through which Deloitte acquired the Monitor Group?
“One of the most important things I learned during that process is that we can tend to hyper focus on hard skills. But being on a board, particularly at a contentious period of time, the soft skills win the day - the people who can take on the tough issues in a way that aligns people, that was critically important for us during that time.”
Twin Valley Companies
Lisa serves on the board of Twin Valley Companies, a 4th generation family-owned managed service provider and telecom products business based in Kansas City. The organization and the family have a very deep-rooted culture and community in the cities and towns that they serve.
Lisa, how did you get onto the Twin Valley board?
“I applied for the Twin Valley board through an organization called the Private Directors Association (PDA) where I’ve been a member for 3 years.”
As a lifelong consultant, I've worked in a variety of different industries. The CEO liked that I had manufacturing experience, hardware, software/SaaS, and other B2B services. They weren’t looking for more telecom expertise – they wanted to learn from other industries.”
“One of the things I love most about this board is that we’re committed to operating at the highest levels of governance. We even hired an external firm to help us develop into a high-performing board. Not all private companies will do that, but they should because when companies have excellent governance they grow, and they grow profitably. That benefits all stakeholders.”
African Entrepreneurial System
Lisa is an advisor to Harambe, “a group of some of the most prominent, amazing entrepreneurs I have ever met from countries all over Africa.” They have started businesses that are geared towards solving some of the biggest problems that the continent faces, like high youth unemployment rates, increasing crop yields (80% of the arable land in the world is in Africa), and getting access to credit.
Semicolon
I was asked to join the advisory board of Semicolon, which is based in Nigeria, but expanding to serve many countries in Africa. They’re teaching young people to write software code. They’re getting jobs in the US and the UK and other parts of Europe yet continuing to live in their villages in Nigeria. So, they’re making US/UK salaries with a Nigerian cost of living. That’s game-chan...
5. John Hession on investor-backed company boards: discipline, tough love and results.
On Boards Podcast
03/15/20 • 39 min
John Hession, legal advisor, business advisor and angel investor, holds the world land record for number of board meetings attended. He’s been working with emerging growth companies for over 35 years and he has seen it all.
He talks about the discipline, tough love and results required if investor backed companies are going to be successful. It is a message that all boards would benefit from listening to and following.
Thanks for listening!
We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here.
Links
https://www.morse.law/attorneys/hession_john
https://seraf-investor.com/compass/article/key-angel-investing-tax-issues-infographic
Quotes
Well, if they're investor backed (companies), you know, there's an insistence on having a good strong board and that often means that simple phrase: tough love. 3:01
If you don't hire a good board and build a good board, you don't have great guidance for the company. ....an investor-backed company, it needs results and oftentimes they're going to be a more difficult, they're going to be more challenging on management strategy. 4:00
Investor backed boards, are much more conscientious, much more deliberative, much more demanding on management (than most private company boards). “You need to solve this problem.” 8:33
I'm delivering this advice (to you as CEO of the company), Joe, and it has to come through everything. Because I would like to see you succeed. And even if I have to give you tough love, it's not personal. It's because I want to see you succeed. 15.47
You can't have the CEO/founder be the chair. If you're going to build an outside board, the chairperson, usually has to be someone who's got a lot of scalps on the belt, a lot of scars, a lot of experience, and been involved in boards. 16.29
Bill Moffitt, was probably was one of the best chairs I ever worked with. He had a way to drive the discussion, drive the agenda, to stop tangential discussions to stay focused on those action items that I talked about and demand performance and, on the action items.
He was the most masterful, yet at the same time, urbanely diplomatic chairman I've ever had the pleasure of working with. He was just so good about assigning tasks, not only to the management team. But to other board members. 17.13
What if you don't find Mr. Perfect (as a Board chair)? How do you find the next level? How do you find a chair that you can make it work? Because the person you described, you just said he was one of the best chairs you've ever seen. Not everyone's going to deliver all the goods. What do you do if, you can't find that person or the chair is not that person? 18:49
1202B stock (capital gains stock) .... is the heart and soul and sinew of American capitalism. Why? The first $10 million of gain is zero capital gains tax. Now, who said the uncle Sam will, they'll give you a gift from town to town Joe. 23:09
Big Ideas
The disciplined approach used to identify board members in investor backed companies should apply to all private company boards as well. It can be a board of five, seven, eleven - it doesn't matter. Exactly what do we need? What are the skills, expertise, attributes that we need in this person and let's go find him or her.
It also applies to off-boarding unproductive board members. It happens that there may be a more definitive incentive to do it in investor back companies. But what's the difference between those companies and a really productive, successful family company board where some of the board members really are just mailing it in?
Transparency and trust are fundamental to the management/board relationship, no matter what size company, what type of company. And “brutal honesty” goes both ways. So a founder has to be brutally honest with himself or herself.
Show more best episodes
Show more best episodes
FAQ
How many episodes does On Boards Podcast have?
On Boards Podcast currently has 77 episodes available.
What topics does On Boards Podcast cover?
The podcast is about Public, Management, Board, Private, Company, Podcasts and Business.
What is the most popular episode on On Boards Podcast?
The episode title '51. Melissa Sampson McMorrow on the Governance of Impact Philanthropy' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on On Boards Podcast?
The average episode length on On Boards Podcast is 35 minutes.
How often are episodes of On Boards Podcast released?
Episodes of On Boards Podcast are typically released every 16 days, 7 hours.
When was the first episode of On Boards Podcast?
The first episode of On Boards Podcast was released on Jan 6, 2020.
Show more FAQ
Show more FAQ