Report of the NACD Blue Ribbon Commission on the Board and Corporate Strategy

The Report of the NACD Blue Ribbon Commission on the Role of the Board in Corporate Strategy helps CEOs and boards of all types become more constructively engaged in advising, assessing, and monitoring strategy; ensuring the execution and modification of strategy; and evaluating the board's own effectiveness in these activities—placing special emphasis on cooperation and collaboration. 

Among the topics and themes:

• The board’s engagement with management, with the nature and extent of the engagement varying depending on various circumstances, must be of a constructive nature in order to properly develop corporate strategy.

• The board and management should work cooperatively in the creation of corporate strategy, with board members prepared to ask incisive questions and anticipating issues of major concern.

• The board and management should jointly decide on the elements of a winning strategy, with management proposing the preliminary strategy, and directors assessing, improving, and approving the strategy.

• The board should monitor the execution of the strategy, as well as ensure that management provides the relevant information and changes to the strategy.

• A board’s composition and organization plays a key role in its development of a winning corporate strategy.