The Governance Revolution: What Every Board Member Needs to Know, NOW! (The Alexandra Lajoux Corporate Governance)

This is truly brilliant... I read the whole thing word for word. The scope is breathtaking. It is well researched, exhaustive, and deeply thoughtful.
-Robert J. Rosenberg, retired partner and co-chair of Insolvency Practice Group at Latham & Watkins LLP

Boards of directors are sitting ducks. Shareholders complain and attack them, management manipulates them, and individual board members have little power, able to act only as a small part of the board as a whole. Governance issues are front and center, yet often there is little understanding, even among board members, of the key role that they themselves play.

Written in an accessible and human voice, The Governance Revolution: What Every Board Member Needs to Know, NOW! provides information and context essential to anyone seeking to understand how corporations and their stewards - the board of directors - can and should function in the volatile world we inhabit.

In every chapter Deborah Hicks Midanek offers detailed insight into the authentic lives of board members of corporations, the current standards for the board members, and why these standards exist. She includes a timely discussion of how clarity of purpose improves board and director effectiveness. Informed by her years of experience serving public, private, and family owned corporate, as well as charitable, boards and government organizations, she provides essential context regarding the evolution of board practice as well as candid discussion of the issues involved in the relentless effort to improve corporate governance processes. Focused mainly on the dominant public corporation, Midanek also explores the special challenges of serving on private and family owned, as well as nonprofit and public agency, boards.

Written by a seasoned board member, and liberally laced with stories and cases illustrating the tricky issues directors wrestle with, The Governance Revolution: What Every Board Member Needs to Know, NOW! is the essential common-sense companion for anyone working with a board, serving on a board, or wanting to do so in the future. Directors, aspiring directors, investors, students of corporate behavior, and you will all benefit from this book.