Thought Leadership | Board Director Hiring

An impending market rebound has many feeling cautiously optimistic, but the extended cycle of the current downturn – now being characterized as “lower for longer” – has created a new reality that will change leadership imperatives for the foreseeable future. Energy leaders are realizing that lower prices, unpredictable market dynamics and hyper competition for talent, resources and capital are driving a need to rebuild and adapt businesses or risk being left behind. In this new reality, it’s critical to strike a balance between disruption and discipline – understanding how to best lead innovation while still adhering to longstanding best practices that will ensure longevity regardless of future market fluctuations.

In 2003, the New York Stock Exchange began to require the boards of listed companies to undergo an annual assessment. At a time when awareness was growing regarding the importance of the board in safeguarding shareholder value, it was thought that this step would provide investors with some transparency regarding how well the board was doing its job.

Most CEOs and boards name succession, both for the CEO and for business unit leaders, as their biggest strategic challenge. While this leadership challenge exists for every industry, it is particularly acute in the consumer sector, where many of the successive waves of disruption first hit.

The prevailing narrative around the Industrial Revolution in its first, second and third iterations is only partly true. Steam power, electricity and modern computing were in fact breakthrough technologies that rapidly came to the fore, disrupting established industries and creating new ones.

How to create positive change in board diversity? What is the role of chairmen in driving the diversity agenda? What advice can a pioneer in the economic empowerment of women give to aspiring female talent?

The ability to give and receive feedback is a fundamental leadership skill. Feedback improves outcomes and results, motivates performance, brings groups together, clarifies goals and objectives, clears outstanding issues and inspires development.

Board succession planning is straightforward and the outcomes reached through objective analysis, dialogue and debate, will ultimately yield a governance body that mirrors the needs of the business and the people it serves.

The need for greater international experience in boardrooms, especially in the U.S., has long been talked about, but with little real progress. Even S&P 500 boards remain very insular today. Yet the rapid globalization of markets seen over the past few decades will seem modest compared to the coming boom as new countries become top world economies.

The marked increase in Chinese acquisitions of Western industrial firms is a natural consequence of China’s emergence onto the global economic stage.

There is no longer much doubt that we are living and working in a time of unprecedented volatility and uncertainty.

In a world characterized by rapid change and increasing levels of complexity and uncertainty, asset management companies see new threats of disruption on the horizon.

Board Effectiveness Reviews. The energy boom that ran for much of the first half of the decade generated both record revenues and ready access to capital that was often collateralized with oil marked at $90 or more per barrel.