After over 20 years of Board recruiting and advisory work, including being part of the team that built the Board and Executive Assessment Practices at Russell Reynolds as a senior partner at the firm, I finally returned to the origins of much of my expertise in the industry with the NACD (National Association of Corporate Directors). One of my friends and Board clients Alice Brennan (Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee of the Greenbacker Renewable Energy Corporation ll, and the former Assistant General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Verizon Corp) has been a very active leader of the NACD for years, and coached me into working with the association on their new Director Certification exam development process. The team was fantastic, and as a wonderful byproduct, I now have a NACD Directorship Certification®.
For most of my career the NACD research work was a first stop with any client where I was working with a Board or senior executive team on governance issues. The educational materials the NACD team has developed for taking the certification exam is about the best short form overview of corporate governance that I have ever seen. It is concise and filled with excellent commentary and examples. I will be recommending that piece alone, along with all the other more detailed research work of the association, to all my clients in the future.
Thanks again to Alice for cajoling me into getting more involved with the NACD, and to Reno Deschaine and the rest of the staff at the association for a job well done. Keep up the good work!