Boardroom Issues

Gender diversity, culture & performance

11 Jan 2016 | Margaret Kett

Encouraging companies to appointment more women to their boards isn't about quotas, it's a strategic imperative that is changing methods of decision-making and positively influencing management cultures.

When CEO narcissism spreads to the board

17 Dec 2015 | Guoli Chen

The push for better corporate governance has overlooked the problems that occur when narcissistic CEOs load their board with images of themselves.

Token women?

25 Nov 2015 | Swarnodeep Homroy

Unless female directors are embedded into a company’s decision-making process and can demonstrate their ongoing value, targets designed to increase the proportion of women on boards will remain nothing more than token symbolism.

Female CFOs reduce corporate tax evasion

25 Feb 2015 | Brian Amble

If we want companies to be more transparent and ethical about their tax affairs, having more women in board positions - and in particular, encouraging more women to become CFOs - could be the answer.

Mentoring gap keeping women and minorities out of corporate elite

20 Sep 2013 | Brian Amble

The numbers of women and people from racial minorities serving on America's corporate boards may have increased over the past decade, but the influential elite holding multiple board positions remains a white, male closed-shop. New research explores why.

Who you know still matters

30 Aug 2012 | Brian Amble

A 10-year study of British companies has found that you are about four times as likely to be appointed as a director if you are a member of the same golf club as a serving member of the board.

A political dilemma

05 Apr 2012 | Mary-Louise Angoujard

As the only woman on a board of directors, Helen feels a strong aversion to socialising with her colleagues on golfing days and wine-tasting sessions. But as Mary-Louise Angoujard explains, this is all about organisational politics, not gender.

The identikit CEO

09 May 2011 | Brian Amble

So much for boardroom diversity. As a new report highlights, in the UK at least, the CEOs of large public companies are now more likely than ever to have a background in accountancy.

External CEOs cost more, deliver less

11 Apr 2011 | Brian Amble

Looking externally for a new CEO could be a waste of time and money. Because a new study has found that companies that only appoint internal candidates as CEO significantly outperform those that appoint outsiders.

Dealing with a dominant CEO

01 Feb 2011 | Brian Amble

A dominant CEO isn't just going to polarise the opinions of those who have to work with him. According to a new study, they can also deliver performance that is either much worse than other companies, or much better.

Senior executives in a boardroom bubble

18 Jan 2011 | Brian Amble

Board level directors in the UK are out of touch with their staff and living in a 'boardroom bubble', according to new research from leadership institute, Roffey Park.

Leadership and accountability: the CEO's burden

09 Sep 2010 | Robert Heller

CEOs are hardly ever given, or asked to provide, a list of criteria by which they can expect to be judged. But common objectives and criteria, while generally unspoken, do exist for all CEOs in all businesses.

Flattery will get you everywhere

24 Aug 2010 | Brian Amble

If you've long suspected that those who make it to the top of organizations are not necessarily those with the most talent or ability, new research suggests that your suspicions could well be correct.

No progress for women in UK boardrooms

21 Jul 2010 | Brian Amble

Efforts to increase the number of women in the boardrooms of Britain's largest companies have failed, according to new research, with almost no change in the number of female directors over the past year.

Cleaning up Britain's boardrooms

23 Mar 2010 | Bob Berry

Proposed changes in British corporate governance rules look like falling far short of what is needed for real boardroom reform because they fail to deal with the massive accumulation of power by boards or kickstart the the process of returning power to owners.

Keeping up appearances

08 Feb 2010 | Brian Amble

A new study has found that far from making real improvements in corporate governance, many CEOs actively try to hoodwink equity analysts about the composition and independence of their boards.

CEO pay rises hit the buffers

25 Jan 2010 | Brian Amble

For the first time in ten years, the bosses of the UK's largest companies enjoyed pay rises less than those of the average British worker in 2009.

Women directors 'hounding' CEOs into falling profitability

07 Aug 2009 | Barry Wade

Companies embracing diversity and increasing the number of women at board level may be heading for a profit slump if they already have good governance structures in place, a leading academic has warned.

No sign of austerity in British boardrooms

03 Jun 2009 | Nic Paton

Amid all the talk of austerity, there has been precious little evidence of belt-tightening among Britain's top bosses over the past year, despite the value of their companies falling by a third.

Companies hanging onto their CEOs

14 May 2009 | Nic Paton

In a crisis you want your most experienced captain at the helm, which is why American and European boardrooms are doing all they can to keep their most battle-tested CEOs in place until things pick up.