QCA Building Better Boards Forum: Keynote speech
As part of our Building Better Boards theme for 2019, we held our Annual Forum on Tuesday 11 June 2019 at Haberdashers’ Hall in London, with over 70 guests from across the small and mid-size quoted company community in attendance.
This year’s forum builds upon our work on corporate governance and is aimed at helping smaller quoted companies build effective boards and develop good practices and behaviours that will drive improved performance and help stimulate their growth.
Watch the highlights of the event here:
Please see below for highlights of our keynote speaker, Andrew Kakabadse.
We were delighted to welcome Professor Andrew Kakabadse, Professor of Governance and Leadership at Henley Business School, as the forum’s keynote speaker.
Andrew began by providing a brief overview of a study conducted in 1919 by Harvard Business School, where the role and purpose of companies and their boards was first explored. He then outlined what the issues associated with the boards of today currently were, this included:
- The side-lining of stewardship;
- A lack of diversification; and
- The fault line between the board and management.
Following this, Andrew explained that there was a lack of awareness of AIM listed companies on the part of Henley Business School (HBS), but that in an ongoing study into non-executive directors (NED’s) of AIM listed companies at HBS in conjunction with the QCA and Downing LLP they were discovering something unseen to them before. He provided an explanation of the nature of the boards of the small and mid-size quoted company community that reside on the AIM market. The outstanding features uncovered during the study thus far include:
- The resilience of NED’s on AIM issuer boards and their ability to be heard and speak up.
- The capability of these NED’s to balance monitoring and stewardship.
- The significant variation in the nature of each company and the different ways in which they put forward compelling information.
- The high level of NED involvement on AIM company boards.
For more from the QCA Building Better Boards Forum 2019, see also:
- Highlights from the first panel session on creating the right board
- Highlights from the second panel session on the evolution of the board
