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A Guide for New CEOs: Getting Off on the Right Foot with Your Board
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Why should I take this course?
The corporate secretary is in a unique position to guide a new CEO on this important topic – and this Webcast will help you to offer constructive insights and helpful advice that can make a big difference. This session is two-hours long.
One of the most challenging aspects of any executive’s ascension to the role of Chief Executive Officer is no longer having a boss, but rather a Board of Directors to report to. This requires some different skills and a different approach to getting things done. Even if the new CEO has worked with the board for several years as a senior executive, the transition is critical. It should never be ignored or taken for granted. The first year after a new CEO’s appointment is an opportunity to start the CEO/Board relationship off on the right foot, avoiding pitfalls and setting a tone for a constructive board/ management relationship that can yield significant benefits for years to come.
Key subjects will include:
One-on-one meetings with every director
Why they’re important, what format should be used and what questions should be discussed. Even if the CEO held director meetings during the CEO succession/selection process, these are entirely different: During the prior meetings he/she was the job applicant to become CEO. This conversation in the foundation of the CEO/Board relationship.FAQ 1 description
Board engagement in strategy
Typically strategy is any new CEO’s first major “test” in terms of how effectively he/she will interface and work with the board on a critical issue. Far too many CEOs go into these sessions in ‘presentation mode’ only to discover their board is disappointed in their approach. Discover how to incorporate board input into the strategy process effectively without ceding the ultimate strategic decision to the board.
Using the board evaluation as a constructive tool in
- If ever there was a time to consider a more robust approach to the board evaluation – away from the “tick the box forms” this is it. Providing the new CEO with a snapshot of the board’s key strengths and potential areas for improvement is a critical first step in the new board/CEO relationship.
- A well-designed interview based board evaluation can also explore fundamental issues that set the tone of the relationship – including how the board may want to work differently with the new CEO, the CEO evaluation process, director expectations, board composition, board frustrations with pre-reading materials and management presentations (nearly 75% of boards are frustrated in this area – and this can be a big win for a new CEO to unearth and tackle).
Beverly Behan, President, Board Advisor, LLC.
Beverly Behan is one of the foremost global experts on board effectiveness, having worked with over 200 Boards of Directors over the past 25 years. - from recent IPOs to the Fortune 100. Although most of her clients are S&P1500s based in the United States, Bev has worked with boards in Canada, Israel, Southeast Asia and Central America and has also worked with boards of private companies, including family-controlled companies, government-controlled companies and ESOPs. She is a native of Canada and a graduate of Ivey Business School; she also earned an LLB from the University of Western Ontario and practiced law in Calgary and Vancouver before starting her work with boards in the mid-1990s. She was transferred to New York in 2000.
For more than two decades, Bev has not only watched but led much of the evolution of board and director evaluations, dating back to 1996 when she conducted the first director peer review for a major Canadian bank. In 2001, she incorporated management input into board evaluations for a Fortune 500 publishing company. In 2015, she conducted the first board and director evaluations for one of the largest conglomerates in Southeast Asia – overcoming the concern that individual director evaluations couldn’t be effectively adapted to Asian business culture. Over the past decade, she’s worked with several boards on the development of Board 2.0, an innovation to help boards optimize their composition and manage that transition effectively. And in 2019, she worked with the board of a Fortune 100 company to create what became the New Director 360, an innovation in director evaluations that has both an evaluative and developmental component.
Bev has helped the Chairs and CEOs of some very impressive boards introduce initiatives that kept their board at the top of its game. She also regularly consults new CEOs about working effectively with their boards and has also designed initiatives to enhance the effectiveness of top corporate executives in working with the board. In late 2022, Bev’s latest book, New CEOs and Boards: How to Build a Great Board Relationship and a Great Board, was released on Amazon worldwide. Bev is also the author of Great Companies Deserve Great Boards (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), named Governance Book of the Year by Directors & Boards magazine, Board and Director Evaluations: Innovations for 21st Century Governance Committees, which ranked #1 on Amazon Business Books in the US and Becoming a Boardroom Star which ranked #1 on Amazon globally in Corporate Governance.
Bev was named one of 20 Most Inspirational Women Leaders of 2022 by Women Leaders magazine for her innovative work with Boards of Directors worldwide. A former partner at Mercer Delta and Global Managing Director of the Hay Group’s Board Effectiveness practice, Bev started her own firm, Board Advisor, LLC, in New York in 2009. (www.boardadvisor.net).
For more than two decades, Bev has not only watched but led much of the evolution of board and director evaluations, dating back to 1996 when she conducted the first director peer review for a major Canadian bank. In 2001, she incorporated management input into board evaluations for a Fortune 500 publishing company. In 2015, she conducted the first board and director evaluations for one of the largest conglomerates in Southeast Asia – overcoming the concern that individual director evaluations couldn’t be effectively adapted to Asian business culture. Over the past decade, she’s worked with several boards on the development of Board 2.0, an innovation to help boards optimize their composition and manage that transition effectively. And in 2019, she worked with the board of a Fortune 100 company to create what became the New Director 360, an innovation in director evaluations that has both an evaluative and developmental component.
Bev has helped the Chairs and CEOs of some very impressive boards introduce initiatives that kept their board at the top of its game. She also regularly consults new CEOs about working effectively with their boards and has also designed initiatives to enhance the effectiveness of top corporate executives in working with the board. In late 2022, Bev’s latest book, New CEOs and Boards: How to Build a Great Board Relationship and a Great Board, was released on Amazon worldwide. Bev is also the author of Great Companies Deserve Great Boards (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), named Governance Book of the Year by Directors & Boards magazine, Board and Director Evaluations: Innovations for 21st Century Governance Committees, which ranked #1 on Amazon Business Books in the US and Becoming a Boardroom Star which ranked #1 on Amazon globally in Corporate Governance.
Bev was named one of 20 Most Inspirational Women Leaders of 2022 by Women Leaders magazine for her innovative work with Boards of Directors worldwide. A former partner at Mercer Delta and Global Managing Director of the Hay Group’s Board Effectiveness practice, Bev started her own firm, Board Advisor, LLC, in New York in 2009. (www.boardadvisor.net).