We Know What Boards Like
Posted on February 18th, 2010 by Katina »Permalink
Compliance Week columnist Richard Steinberg has been writing a very interesting series in recent weeks on the types of information corporate boards need to conduct their business. It’s a great topic to explore, and his piece today on what the C-suite needs to be sure to let boards in on is well worth a read. Steinberg makes some good points about the importance of making sure directors are familiar both with overall policy approaches and with day-to-day operations.
Some excerpts –
“The risk officer should not be held accountable for identifying, analyzing, managing, and reporting risks. Rather, the chief risk officer is positioned to ensure an effective and efficient risk-management process exists in the organization.”
“More and more directors are getting outside the boardroom to gain greater firsthand knowledge about the company, and management can be a catalyst and facilitator to make the time spent most worthwhile. There are, however, some important dos and don’ts. Avoid sending directors to parts of the company pre-selected to provide positive input. This is a recipe for disaster; directors will recognize it for what it is and question their trust in management.”
Being able to provide tangible evidence or risk policies and mitigation strategies is more important now than ever for businesses, and giving visibility to directors into operations is just as important. We couldn’t help but be reminded by another piece on this topic from the Audit Trail archives that deserves another look. In it, Julie Garland McLellan wrote (all the way back in the summer of 2008) about the role that Continuous Controls Monitoring can play in ensuring that directors have the information they need, and how directors can leverage CCM’s real-time operational visibility to guide companies to success.
Finally for today – and in a completely different vein, is there anything in the world more entertaining than accountant humor? I mean, it’s not quite a birthday song and video commemorating the fifth anniversary of Sarbanes-Oxley, but it’s a nice way to end the week with a chuckle or two.
February 19th, 2010 at 2:06 am
I totally agree with Richard’s views on the information required and on the responsibilities of risk managers, audit managers, CFOs and other board reporters.
A useful addition to the literature on board reporting is provided by Mary Morel’s excellent new book ‘Write to Govern’. A review is available at http://www.mclellan.com.au/book_reviews.html
Different boards use different information in different ways and for different reasons. You can get a good overview of some of the diverse board environments in anew book ‘Dilemmas, Dilemmas; practical case studies for company directors’ available at http://www.amazon.com/Dilemmas-Practical-Studies-Company-Directors/dp/1449921965/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264485749&sr=1-1 it may assist boards (and their direct reports) that are not in the large corporate sector to customise their information to suit their purposes.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
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March 9th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
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