This is the time when I get deluged with queries on what hot topics I'll be addressing in the coming year in the pages of Directors & Boards — i.e., my "editorial calendar" for 2010. It is not fixed in stone, but here goes:
First Quarter (Winter)
• Roundtable: A Fresh Assault on and Defense of the Logic of Separating the Chairman and CEO Positions
• Board Comp: What to Pay the Nonexecutive Chairman
• Audit Committees vs. Risk Committees: Best Approaches for Risk Management
Second Quarter (Spring)
• Selecting an Independent Compensation Consultant for the Board
• Who Speaks for the Board? Should Boards Have Their Own PR Adviser?
• Board Composition: First Timers — How I Got on a Board (and Lessons Learned)
Governance Year in Review (Annual Report 2010)
• A Full Recap of the Events, People, Organizations, Regulatory Initiatives, Legal Cases, and Other Actions and Reactions that Defined Board Oversight in 2009
Third Quarter (Summer)
• Board Compensation: Review of the Spring Proxy Reports on Pay Levels and Practices
• Are Directors Underpaid?
• Board Diversity — Progress Report?
Fourth Quarter (Fall)
• How to Get on a Board in 2011
• HR Expertise On and For the Board
• Risk Committees of the Board: Are They Getting Any Traction?
Many other topics will be addressed in the year ahead. Other pressing issues may arise that will cause some of the above topics to be rescheduled or tabled. But this is the working calendar for a year in which corporate governance itself should again be the hottest of topics.
Pictured: Henry Keizer, Global Head of Audit of KPMG International and U.S. Vice Chair-Audit of KPMG LLP, who will address key issues of risk management by board audit and risk committees in the Q1 2010 edition of Directors & Boards.
