The value of the independent advisor to the Remuneration Committee

Remuneration Committees (RemCos) are a topic which seems “far away” for many of the C&B professionals in the field, even the most senior ones, and especially in the Gulf countries, the region where I’m currently based. Yet, sooner or later, we are all confronted by requests coming from “The Board”, or documents to prepare for…

An important day for females in the UAE… and beyond

On Sunday (December 9, 2012), His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum chaired a Cabinet meeting and made a series of announcements through his official Twitter account @HHShkMohd. Here is the one I want to celebrate today : We have also made a decision to make the representation of women, in all the boards…

Boards and quotas – For or against them ?

There was an excellent blog post from Nilofer Merchant at Harvard Business Review recently, entitled Quotas for women on Boards are wrong. In it, she argues against quotas for women to access company Boards. Some of her arguments are very convincing. In particular, I agree that we should focus on bringing more “board readiness” for…