Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/1059224
OWN IT | AD Today 2018 | 109 all the contingencies that will help enhance the likelihood of success as well as reduce risk for an idea, product, program, or plan." Numerous AD members have seized the opportunity to establish a Board at critical junctures in their company's evolution. At Risoul, a 45-year-old family- owned Electrical distributor based in Mexico, "our owners were getting set to retire and wanted to create a Board of Directors to help their three daughters better understand the business and ultimately help ensure the continuity of the business, not only for our customers and our own family but for the families of our 550 employees," shared Director General Gerardo Ayala. At 90-year-old, fourth-generation Consolidated Supply Co. in Portland, OR, President Karla Neupert Hockley explained that after her father passed in 2002, leadership of the company went to a non-family member for the first time, while stewardship of the company fell to her mother. "She'd been around the business for decades but hadn't worked in the day-to-day, so close family friends of ours and our CPA firm recommended that I, my mother, and my siblings connect with the Austin Family W h o 's Yo ur S o un din g B o ar d ? "One of the principal reasons to establish a Board of Directors or Advisory Board is to have a collection of seasoned experts or executives who can give the CEO and management team the benefit of their experience." – Victor Boyajian, Dentons US LLP Continued on page 110 Business (AFB) Program at Oregon State University, which sponsors seminars specifically designed for companies facing similar challenges," she said. "A best practice shared with us was the creation of a 'real' Board of Directors – not a collection of relatives – who could bring professional experience and an objectivity you can't get any other way, with the primary objective always being the health of the company." GETTING STARTED: CONSTRUCTING YOUR BOARD Behler-Young Company in Grand Rapids, MI began involving the input of outside directors in the 1970s. For Doug Young, their President & CEO, the process of building their Board followed a logical flow. "We engaged a consultant from a family business consulting group to help in the process and then proceeded to determine the characteristics we wanted in our directors, identify a pool of candidates, and undertake an interviewing process to select the right individual(s)," Young said. "We wanted to have a diversity of backgrounds represented and now have a CEO from our industry, an executive from a very large industrial distributor that focuses on financial operations, and a CEO from a local family business on our Board." Neupert Hockley said that her team at Consolidated Supply networked in order to identify qualified candidates and also received suggestions from the AFB Program as well as others they knew. In an effort to secure Victor Boyajian Global Chair, Venture Technology Dentons US LLP Gerardo Ayala Director General Risoul