High Performance Boards: A Practical Guide to Improving and Energizing Your Governance

Overview

Didier Cossin’s High Performance Boards covers aspects of culture and organisational design that are foundational to any successful institution. This comprehensive study captures real-world insights on quality governance and effective leadership. It connects his four- pillar methodology for gauging and improving board effectiveness, learning from both failure and success and boardroom best practice. It is a valuable tool for present and future directors.

Mark Tucker Group Chairman of HSBC Holdings plc

Recent developments in the financial services industry dramatically illustrate the intimate link between good governance and a company’s success or failure, particularly in times of crisis. In his latest book, Didier Cossin sheds light on the design principles and practice that underpin good governance. A catchy and comprehensive textbook for those in charge!

Sergio Ermotti Group CEO and President of the Executive Board of UBS AG

In the newly revised second edition of High Performance Boards: A Practical Guide to Improving & Energizing your Governance, author Didier Cossin delivers an incisive and practical roadmap to board governance best-practices. Accessible to professionals from a variety of backgrounds, the book lays out the foundational and advanced concepts you’ll need to understand to effectively govern a for-profit firm, non-profit, or government entity.

You’ll learn to manage risk, increase the impact of your board, consider and evaluate the importance of ESG metrics, take into account geopolitics, and supervise your organization’s culture. You’ll also discover:

Extensive revisions to existing chapters, including new methods of cyber-risk management and stakeholder management
Strategies for avoiding the common pitfall of ‘greenwashing’
Increasingly common new activism techniques undertaken by boards and investors to shape the behaviour of organizations

An indispensable resource for board members and directors serving on boards at organizations of all kinds, High Performance Boards will also earn a place on the bookshelves of corporate lawyers, board secretaries, and students of corporate governance. For additional materials to the book, please see didiercossin.com.

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Order now from Blackwells UK. Worldwide delivery. This book is available to order from all your favourite local and online book stores too

Didier Cossin

Chaired Professor of Governance and Finance, and Founder and Director of the IMD Global Board Center

He works with owners, boards, and senior leaders to help them improve organizational performance through best-in-class governance and decision-making. He also holds the UBS Chair in Banking and Finance.

Cossin is the originator of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness methodology and an advocate of stewardship – the idea that leaders should aim to deliver positive long-term social and economic impact.

He is also focused on the governance of investments, including how ESG can be integrated with the investment process all the way through to asset allocations and not only in asset selection and engagement. Good governance transforms performance because it protects against downside risks, such as reputational risks and integrity risks, he says, and helps organizations to adapt, which creates upside opportunities.

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