Course Overview 

Sophisticated boards look to the corporate secretary to keep pace with best practices and innovations to take their annual board evaluation to the next level or keep an effective process vibrant and refreshed.  That’s what this session is designed to achieve.

Session leader, Beverly Behan, is the author of Board and Director Evaluations:  Innovations for 21st Century Governance Committees, which debuted in 2022 as the #1 Amazon new release in Corporate Governance worldwide.  Bev shares her insights and experience from working with more than 200 boards in Canada, the US and around the world over the past 25 years on board and director evaluations and related board-building issues.  

Session One: Getting More From Your Board Evaluation - May 22, 2024

A board evaluation is the most powerful tool in the governance arsenal –one that’s rarely used to its full potential.  This session begins with a discussion of how to design your board evaluation to make your board even more effective and shift its operating mode. We’ll cover the eight key parameters of board-building that should be covered in all board evaluations, best practices in board evaluation design, interview vs survey formats, including senior executive feedback in the board evaluation and typical outcomes from a comprehensive process.  We’ll also introduce Board 2.0, a new approach to board succession planning that can easily be incorporated into a board evaluation, offering several advantages over the traditional board skills matrix. 

Session Two:  Director Evaluations that Board Members Love– May 23, 2024

Bev conducted the first individual director evaluation in North America in 1996 for the board of one of the major Canadian banks. Best practices have changed dramatically since that time - yet even today that old 1996 design is still prevalent in some Canadian boardrooms. This session discusses three different tools for director evaluations every corporate secretary should know about – what they can achieve (or not) and how to design them to be genuinely worthwhile for your board.  She’ll discuss her recent work in this area with boards in the Fortune 500, including the New Directors 360, developed for a Fortune100 board in 2019 that was so well-received that the practice is routinely highlighted by their Board Chair in meetings with Wall Street analysts. And yes, their response is “Wow!”. 

Speaker:

Beverly Behan - President, Board Advisor, LLC.  Author of Board and Director Evaluations: Innovations for 21st Century Governance Committees