Happy to admit when I'm wrong but...

On Saturday this article irritated me, as you might expect, so I shot off a letter to the Guardian noting in particular that the reference to Jimmy Choo was inaccurate, according to their web site.

Today I've had a message from the Readers' Editor's department, pointing out that Judith Sprieser left the board of Jimmy Choo with immediate effect earlier this month. Well, my bad.  The Stock Exchange announcement cites"personal reasons unrelated to the company".

This raises a question about naming and shaming boards which do not appear to be suitably diverse in their composition, in terms of the impact of timing and movement of directors. Presumably the Jimmy Choo board will be expected to appoint another woman. Suppose they had reached the magic number of three women on the board and one left: would they be expected to replace her with another woman? Extend this supposition to encompass representation of other groups: is the assumption that for every group there will be an appropriate number which should always be maintained? Won't it be a tad difficult for boards to ensure the right balance of competence and experience within these limitations?

Just askin'...

Women on boards redux

I'm following this morning's self-congratulatory tweets from Cranfield where the latest figures on women on boards are being revealed.

One tweet shows the extract from the report which lists the FTSE250 companies without female board members. Jimmy Choo? Now that's interesting. I see from their web site that do have some fancy shoes for men but surely their main customers are women? But, but... they do have a female NED, Judith Sprieser, so why are they on the list? Wonder if my tweet will get any response.

Lord Davies has apparently opined that "boards are getting fixed". Did they need fixing? Where's the evidence for that? Will I ever get tired of asking?

The Economist

Once upon a time, one could rely on the Economist. Its content could have been viewed as true thought leadership (I've been thinking about that today: see here.)

But these days its comment on corporate governance often just makes me sigh. Take this. 

First, the picky points.

1. Arthur Andersen was not a company, didn't have shareholders so couldn't practice shareholder-value maximisation. As a professional services firm, it may have advised its clients to do so but that's a little different.

2. Colin Mayer has not yet, as far as I'm aware, been knighted, although he has written a very good book.

But what I would most take issue with is this statement in the penultimate paragraph of the article:

"..most companies are engaged in a constant process of negotiation between managers and investors over their strategy and time horizons."

Do investors have such close engagement with managers? Where's the evidence for this? The Cadbury Committee envisaged that the Code of Best Practice would improve corporate governance by stimulating such engagement between investors and boards  but even that hasn't worked as well as they might have hoped. 

I think this is sloppy journalism.

Now in print...

My piece in the March issue of economia. Will any one read it, I wonder?