In a special European edition of Inside America’s Boardrooms, we film from Diligent’s Directors Experience, an international gathering of board members that recently took place in Lake Como, Italy. Host TK Kerstetter welcomes Yiannis Petrides, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Refresco (based in Rotterdam, Netherlands), to discuss the traits of successful board leaders.
In nearly every corporate governance environment around the world, the role of the board chairman has grown increasingly complex. Shareholder activism and demands for greater transparency, compliance, and innovation are driving these complexities–and it’s ultimately the role of the chairman to ensure board discussions are keeping pace.
In this episode, Petrides outlines three key responsibilities of today’s board chairs. Host TK Kerstetter and Petrides also compare board leadership roles in Europe vs. the United States, where a joint CEO/chairman position is still common at many companies. The two discuss the pros and cons of each approach.
I’m always looking at the role of the chairman and the board as a high-performance team–a high-performance team that is there to help the CEO and to leverage the CEO, as opposed to creating more complexity for the CEO.
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