Making Boards Work : What Directors Must Do to Make Canadian Boards Effective

With increasing muscle-flexing of shareholders, especially large fund managers,boards of directors are being held accountable for a higher standard of professional behaviour. Making Boards Work focuses on the management of the governance process and outlines specific, practical, how-to steps and actions that can be implemented to make any board more effective.
Making extensive use of Canadian case studies drawn from actual experiences, authors David Leighton and Donald Thain illustrate many challenges facing those involved in governance and offer practical solutions.
Making Boards Work will help directors, shareholders, managers, advisers, regulators, and legislators alike to --
-better understand the challenges and potential rewards of professional governance
-understand and manage the six key success factors for boards
-evaluate a board's strengths and weaknesses
-outline a new code of conduct for directors
-foster and manage a climate of constructive dissent
-establish guidelines for an effective chairman
-understand why boards fail and how to turn around an underperforming board
Authors David Leighton and Donald Thain's experience in corporate governance spans 31 corporate boards, 280 man-years of board service, and literally thousands of board and committee meetings. This wealth of experience translates into an invaluable guide to effective governance that will "ring true" to all those who have grappled with board situations.

David Leighton is Nabisco Brands Professor Emeritus at Ivey Business School. He has an MBA and DBA from Harvard, LLD degrees from Windsor and Queen's. He has served as chairman of Nabisco Brands Ltd. and as a board member of numerous corporations, including Gulf Canada, Rio Algom, Telemedia, Montreal Trust, GSW, Scott's Hospitality, GW Utilities, Camco Inc, and Cambridge Shopping Centres. He was president and CEO of the Banff Centre for 13 years.
Donald Thain is Magna International Professor Emeritus at Ivey Business School. He has an MBA and DBA from Harvard Business School and is a prolific author, lecturer and consultant. He has served as board chairman of Lawson and Jones Ltd.,and as a director of a number of Canadian publicly-listed companies, including Cooper Canada, Goodyear Canada, Lawson Mardon Group, Silcorp, Denison Mines, and GW Utilities. He has also served on the boards of several privately-owned companies.