19_12_02_ECO_News

Company boards of directors are facing a complete redesign. The model of business, the form of governance and corporate culture are affected by the changes demanded by the business sector in the face of a demand for creative, agile companies with consolidated governance.

This mission statement, was recalled by Isabel Tocino, director and vice-president of Santander Spain, at the I Good Governance Forum organized by the high school business y Humanismo at the University of Navarra's postgraduate program headquarters in Madrid. "If companies are transforming, boards of directors must also transform".

The director of Santander and other companies such as Enagás and Ence, shared roundtable with Antonio Basagoiti, president of the Eugenio Rodríguez Pascual Foundation, who recalled that all areas of knowledge of the business should be present in the committee. He also urged that this concern should also have a place in the selection processes.

The permanence over time of the family business and its consolidation was one of the topics addressed by Eduardo Baviera, co-founder and director general of Clínica Baviera, who emphasized that the value of a company is its ability to survive over the years. "We have to have credibility, success and aplomb so as not to depend on the short term deadline". For her part, Nuria Vilanova, founder and president of Atrevia, with whom she shared roundtable Baviera, encouraged the board members present to be creative and to overcome the moments of risk involved in making decisions. "In all companies at some point it is necessary to 'swallow the fish'." The panel, moderated by Andrés Fontenla, partner founder of Recarte & Fontenla addressed the diary Governance of committee in family and private companies.

For his part, Ignacio Lezáun, partner of Deloitte manager of the Center of Excellence in Corporate Governance, described the current reality in which the director operates as complex: "Today we operate in a scenario of interrelated uncertainties," said speaker in his speech in which he recalled the importance, among others, of the ethical integrity of companies and cybersecurity.

Closing the workshop, Carlos Arbesú, Phd. and partner of the high school business and Humanismshowed how to bring to the diary of committee the essential functions of good governance and the role of shareholders: "An inadequate shareholder does more harm to a business than an inadequate CEO," he warned.