Marcus Ventures

Future Proofing the Boardroom in The European Business Review 20 January 2012

The board room is going through an extraordinary time of transition. More is being demanded of boards than ever before, and the activities of boards are under greater scrutiny.

Is It Time to Fix Our Boardrooms? 12 January 2012

Is It Time to Fix Our Boardrooms? Increasing scrutiny requires boards to step up and deliver a better future

Les conseils d’administration: le moment est-il venu d’ajuster le tir? La surveillance accrue dont ils font l’objet fait en sorte qu’ils doivent intensifier leurs efforts et offrir à l’entreprise un avenir plus prometteur

This article appears in English & French in the Director Journal, a publication of Canada’s Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD)

RBS’s board lessons 19 December 2011

Last week the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) released a report on the near collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), the overambitious institution that took over ABN Amro and then had to be bailed out by the British government to the tune of £45 billion ($70 billion) in 2008. It is one of several financial institutions around the world that have encountered serious difficulties in the past several years, but this report is particularly edifying.

The report has harsh words for the board of RBS, and highlights some of the failures of the RBS board in a way that provides an implicit warning for board members of financial institutions. The lessons that can be gleaned from looking at the RBS case are valuable for any director serving on the board of any business.

What happens when the board goes global? 5 December 2011

In the past couple of weeks we’ve seen board-related stories from Japan with Olympus, India with Tata, Italy with Finmeccanica, South Korea with the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), and more. Each story brings up a different issue around corporate governance, but taken together they raise a fresh question: Is a new global approach to board ethics emerging?

College trustees are board members, and then some 25 November 2011

Recent news around Penn State and the “Occupy” Movement on university campuses has thrown the role of the college and university trustee into the headlines and it is worth having a closer look at the role of the board of trustees and what it means to sit on the board of a higher education institution.

Like all boards, college and university boards have a general obligation to be caretakers of the organization and look after the interests of all its stakeholders, but in the higher education sector this role is layered with more complexity than it is for most corporate entities. After all, they are shaping the minds of future generations and it is the last opportunity to do that in a collective setting before a class of future scientists and artists, politicians and teachers, entrepreneurs and journalists spreads out into the world.