I’ve spent this weekend in Washington, DC, attending the NACD Corporate Director’s Institute course on Director Professionalism. I’ve been a member of the NACD for a few years now (and serve on the New England chapter’s marketing committee), and when they launched this program I signed up right away. It’s been a weekend filled with sessions on building and sustaining board value, the role and current issues of audit, compensation, and nominating committees; financial literacy for directors, etc.
This is something I did voluntarily, even sought out, so that I can fulfill some of my responsibilities with greater competency. I now have a Certificate of Director Education, which should bump my ISS score a bit. If you need someone with my technology background on a board, I now have a piece of paper that says I know a little bit about good governance practice and I guess you get some credit on your company’s CGQ score …
I expected to learn a lot this weekend, which I did. What I didn’t expect was to see how much impact the NACD has had over the last two decades in promoting good board governance — a number of the positive changes over the last 5 years have come out of basic research and education that NACD participated in and in some cases led. It is so important to have the right tone starting with the board, and to have people of high integrity overseeing our nation’s corporations. I applaud the NACD and the work they have been doing in this area.
It’s back home to Boston tomorrow, via the Acela. I’m looking forward to 6 hours on the train, I find the Acela a great place for thinking and offline work. It’s somehow very free of distractions, you can take a cell call but it’s also spotty, so you don’t have time for a long converastion.