Kim BrattainFounder/ CEO, Kim Brattain Media · Award-winning Corporate and Documentary Film Producer

CEOs, Board Chairs, Chairs of Governance and Nominating Committees come to Peter Browning Partners?

27 May 2014 · 2 min

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1:55

In this segment, the speaker explains the motivations for CEOs, board chairs, and governance committee chairs to hire a third‑party firm like Peter Browning Partners for board and governance reviews. The core reasons are: (1) high‑performing boards seek an external perspective to step back, reflect on current performance, and identify incremental improvements despite already strong practices; (2) companies that have recently completed or are preparing for an IPO often have newly formed boards lacking public‑company experience, and they benefit from an outsider who can guide them on best practices tailored to their unique situation; and (3) organizations that have undergone a merger or large acquisition face new board dynamics as members from both entities combine, requiring an experienced facilitator to assess and improve board responsibilities. Across all scenarios, the speaker emphasizes that no two boards are identical, so a seasoned third‑party can provide customized insights to enhance governance.

Chapters

First and foremost, they're looking for the benefit of a third party, a third party that's had broad governance experience, board experience, and CEO experience. But specifically, we've had examples of high-performing boards that want the benefit of time to step back and take a look at their current performance and think about and reflect on other ways that they might improve. Because no 2 boards are the same. There's no standard set of very best practices. There are many, many good practices. So they're looking for the opportunity to step back and just to reflect that they might help improve in an already very good functioning board. Another example is companies that have just become a new public company. They've just finished an IPO or they're about to. Go through an IPO. And what you have there in many cases is a new board, a board that in most circumstances has never had public company experience. So they're looking for the opportunity to have someone come in from the outside, sit back with them, and talk about what might work for them, keeping in mind again, no two companies are the same. What works best for one may not work for another. And then finally, we've got examples of companies who have gone through a merger, or a large acquisition where the outcome is you've brought board members from the acquiring company or the merged company onto the board and you've got a totally new dynamic. Again, the benefit of accessing a third party with the kind of experience that Peter Browning Partners has allows them to step back and take a look at how they perform the various aspects of their board responsibilities and how they can improve them.