Shine: Governance Illuminated

The Private Directors Association® believes great governance creates value in private companies, increasing stakeholder confidence and ensuring competitive advantage. In this series of 15-20-minute podcasts you will hear PDA members –owners, executives, independent directors and service providers–share their passion for governance based on healthy accountability, respect for process and collaborative behavior.  To the PDA community, governance is so much more than compliance with regulation and legislation. It creates value through:

improving sustainability * managing risk * evaluating opportunities * providing advice and counsel to the CEO * evaluating and enhancing the strategic plan * ensuring the executive team are the right people to execute the plan * aligning compensation and management incentives with shareholder objectives *

SHINE: Governance Illuminated episodes are released bi-weekly. Listen here or subscribe through your usual podcast provider.

Meghan Juday is proud that IDEAL Industries—now multi-national and hi-tech—is still based on the values of her great-grandfather J. Walter Becker, a multi-talented entrepreneur. Meghan is Chairman of the Board—the first woman in the role. Meghan joins PDA’s Alan Aldworth to discuss IDEAL relationships, board structure and board process and to share her experience of family ownership, boardroom challenges and the value of an all-women network.

Bob Buddig is one of a team of five family members stewarding Carl Buddig and Co.—a business making and marketing lunch meat, sausage and barbecue. Listen to discover how the Buddig family has weathered fall outs and forged relationships, keeping the third and fourth generations pulling together while continuing to learn and grow. Bob, Vice Chairman of the Private Directors Association, discusses the value (and values) of effective family governance in conversation with PDA’s Alan Aldworth.

Times change, families grow, and ownership can become too much of a risk. As Chief Executive and then Chair of Crane & Co., Lanse Crane had to mastermind first the transformation and then the sale of an enterprise that had been in his family for more than one hundred years. The company made paper –some of it used for currency. It turns out a license to print money is not all it’s cracked up to be. Lanse tells Elaine Eisenman the story of loving the company and letting it go.

Monica Starks is majority owner of GS Group LLC, a construction company based in Detroit. She didn’t grow up in the building trade and started her career in radio. Determined to own her own business, she first earned her real estate license. Then became a licensed builder. Next a mold assessor… Monica is a continuous learner with a multi-million-dollar business built on asking questions, listening carefully to the answers, and acting on what she now knows. An experienced and dedicated non-profit board member, she is on the threshold of a private company board career. Listen as she tells Alan Aldworth how and why she set up an advisory board to support the growth of GS Group LLC and the value her governance network generates.