Newsletter

THE B ECONOMY: How benefit corporations benefit society, not just the bottom line

By Frederick Alexander

This week, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren dropped a bombshell piece of legislation that would require every company with more than $1 billion in revenue or 5,000 employees to become a “benefit corporation.” Some called the legislation brilliant; others labeled it Marxist.

It is remarkable how closely the benefit corporation idea in her bill tracks legislation supported by Republicans around the country. Thirty of the 34 legislatures that adopted a benefit corporation option did so unanimously. The laws were signed by 16 Republican governors including Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Sam Brownback, Scott Walker and Jan Brewer. Libertarian Senator Rand Paul endorsed the benefit corporation in 2014.

Why has corporate law reform become a bipartisan issue? The answer lies in the importance of the corporate firm to a successful capitalist society; and as that society evolves, corporate laws must adapt.

Directors to Watch: Progress of diversity in the boardroom continues to drive debate

By Scott Chase

In a survey of more than 4,000 directors that WCD conducted with Spencer Stuart and researchers from Harvard Business
School, male directors cited a “lack of qualified female candidates” as the reason for low diversity, while female directors
assigned cause to entrenched “traditional non-diverse networks.”

Directors & Boards offers its annual "Directors to Watch" listing of some of the top board members in corporate governance.

Musk’s Tweet Fallout & the Board: Is there unrest in Tesla’s boardroom?

A day after Elon Musk tweeted about possibly taking Tesla Inc. private, a subset of the electric car company’s board released a statement confirming they had discussed the option and are now evaluating it.

The mass media took that as a sign the board was behind Tesla’s unconventional CEO, as this USA Today headline blared:

Tesla board endorses CEO Elon Musk's stunning plan to consider going private

But it could actually be a sign that not everyone’s on the same page in the Tesla boardroom, and that Musk — who holds both the CEO and chairman titles despite a recent shareholder vote over whether he should abdicate the chair role — is wielding too much power, maintains Michelle Lowry, a professor of finance for the LeBow School of Business at Drexel University, and the academic director of corporate governance at the Gupta Governance Institute at the university.