British boards need to get over themselves
To listen to the chairs of some of the UK’s largest listed companies, a greater focus on stewardship has bred worse stewards, a more vocal ESG movement worse governance.
Investors taking a more active interest in the companies they own had not improved corporate accountability but unnecessarily distracted boards. Or at least that is more or less the message of a report compiled from interviews with 35 high-profile chairs. Shareholders are failing to see the big picture about what is important. More power should be delegated to boards; investors can always boot them out if they don’t like what they see.
This can broadly be summed up as an attitude of “board knows best”. Except it should be abundantly clear that boards, in fact, do not always know best.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Cat Rutter Pooley
