Board effectiveness and performance beyond the annual evaluation (CPD event)

Understanding the DNA of your board’s performance.

The terms board effectiveness and board performance tend to be associated with, and thought about solely in the context of, the annual board evaluation. This is changing, but maybe not as quickly as it should as many boards continue to see the evaluation as an annual box-ticking exercise of little value, and many external providers of board evaluations are too focussed on the bare minimum of what’s required under various codes and regulations.

However, when thoroughly embraced by a board, and conducted professionally by an experienced practitioner, an independent and objective external board evaluation and performance programme establishes a strong foundation upon which the current strengths and challenges within the board can be assessed, a measurable plan of sustained improvement can be devised and its progress measured over successive periods.

This CPD event examines how the company secretary can facilitate their board’s effectiveness and performance, and influence the directors on the merits and benefits of an objective evaluation which highlights the important issues and provides the basis upon which the board can achieve meaningful changes to their performance.

David O’Callaghan Full Biography:

David is a Partner at Board Excellence, a specialist board consultancy practice that enables and empowers boards, working as teams, and individual directors to excel in effectiveness, performance and corporate governance best practices.

Board Excellence supports boards of all company and business types across all sectors and of all sizes in Ireland, the UK and continental Europe. We also work with company secretaries to assist them in shaping the structures and practices required to support the board in achieving excellence.

David is an experienced board and governance professional having served as Group Company Secretary at Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. (“AIB”), a large, publicly-listed, international financial services organisation. In that role, he was a valued adviser to Chairs, CEOs, Directors and Executives on promoting and sustaining the robustness and efficacy of governance and board arrangements and practices.

He is an experienced Chair and director and a seasoned senior executive with broad and deep experience in the financial services sector including extensive senior leadership experience across a range of core activities in AIB.

David has been Non-Executive Chair and Director of the Board of Trustees of a number of financial services industry and professional bodies’ defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes and a Non-Executive Director of numerous AIB subsidiary company Boards.

He is a Certified Investment Fund Director (CIFD), a Master of Business Administration (MBA), a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) and Licentiate of the Institute of Banking (LIB).