Last Saturday I was reading an article in the business section of a daily, where the writer brought up the issue of the vacant position of Chairpersons in Public Listed Companies. In that article the writer was highlighting the pivotal role a Chairperson plays etc and that as part of good governance even that the Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance had highlighted this most important of roles and made recommendations there too.
Now what I found "funny, that the writer only highlighted/named two companies in his article and I began asking myself why he would do that as he could have brought into play the many other practices that corporations had been practicing, for example,
- Daddy founder, now retires son takes over, daddy assumes role of Executive Chairman and son CEO/MD, or
- Former CEO retires, appointed deputy executive chairman, new person is MD and yes there is still a Chairman.
Before I get ahead of myself, I know, all of you are saying must read the position description and see what their roles and responsibilities are! True, however there is also what is disclosed and what the ordinary man on the street will conclude from reading these positions. Can you imagine the responses from Company Secretaries, if a shareholder writes and ask for the position descriptions for these positions!
Thinking out aloud, can there not be a case for not having Chairman of the Company, but instead Chairman of the Meeting by rotation, it could actually foster better governance as everyone knows that they will be under the spotlight! Oh, as for Chairman's statement in the Annual Statement it can be Statement of the Board of Directors, even better for responsibility and accountability, it will get those that tend to good off to stay awake!
Coming back to the original question, I wonder if there was an agenda with regards to last weeks article?, I suppose the days for balanced and unbiased writing is some distant dream.
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