
You cannot improvise to be an effective and useful independent member of a Board of Directors; you need to learn to become one.
Independent directors are often brilliant entrepreneurs in their field, but relatively new to their role as an independent board member in another company. Being a seasoned expert in his field and an independent director in a company in another field are two very different roles.
Ethiaxe offers various services to independent directors:
Mentoring and raising awareness of the independent Board Member on how to act ethically in its role.
Support and assistance in complying with legal obligations, including analysis of exposure to Personal Legal Responsibility as a corporate agent.
Organizing and conducting Workshops for Board members, among others in decision-making.
Self-assessment of the Board.
Already during her studies in business management, Sara had a certainty:
she
would create her own business and would never be a number among thousands in a
large firm. By thinking about her project and the areas in which vast opportunities
could open up in the decades to come, she fairly quickly concluded that the field of
the environmental protection was where she would be working in. Like many young
people, the question of climate change and the threats it poses to humanity has
been of great interest to her. How to bring her small but useful contribution to this
huge challenge? How to contribute usefully to the safeguard of the environment,
while creating a business? After much thought, the field in which she chose to be
active was recycling, because the huge amount of waste thrown into landfills that
could be partly sorted and recycled. She created her first sorting center, organized
the harvesting, sorting and shipping to the various specialized recyclers.
The
gamble paid off, because Sara had found the missing link between specialized
recyclers and individual and business consumers. A dozen other sorting centers
were created and a few years later, the media nicknamed Sara the "queen of
recycling". Sara was invited to join the Board of Directors of a very large computer
firm, the world leader in matter of optical, tactile, environmental sensors. Proud to
have been chosen at only 34 years of age for such a prestigious position, she
accepted on the spot. Reflecting about the proposal, she realized that she had only
a very vague idea of the role and responsibilities of a board member in a publicly
traded company. She concluded that reading legal texts was not enough.
She
needed to be helped and accompanied by an expert who had "lived" on boards of
directors, a mentor who could guide her first steps in a benevolent way. She knew
that she would need to be coached not only before the first session, but also later in
a lighter way. She decided to call Ethiaxe, of which she had heard from a friend.
Ethiaxe organized a series of intensive sessions. ETHIAXE laid out in detail and
based on real situations all the legal obligations of an independent director, his
obligations, his role. Other topics discussed were the decision-making mechanisms,
the interaction with other members and the top management, the rights of minority
shareholders, among other.
After the first meeting of the Board of Directors, Ethiaxe regularly followed up with
quarterly meetings with Sara and question and answer sessions at Sara's request
via video conference.
Sara successfully introduced herself into her new role as an Independent Director, making an original contribution to the discussions. Remembering the valuable help that Ethiaxe had given her in her first steps as an independent director, Sara
proposed to the CEO to entrust Ethiaxe with a mission: develop and implement a
self-evaluation tool for the board of directors.
Ethiaxe accepted this mission with enthusiasm. The evaluation system put in place resulted in the replacement of two directors whose contribution proved to be insufficient. Two years later, Sara was
appointed to the Board's Strategic Committee, while continuing to perform with
great satisfaction her role of "Queen of Recycling" in her family business.
JCF 31st March 2019
Will you be the next satisfied customer?
Yes