Joanne Lublin of the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece examining the growing acceptance of the need for splitting the corprate chairman and CEO positions.  Lublin discusses a recent report,

… prepared by the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at Yale University’s School of Management, the Chairmen’s Forum proposes that companies appoint a separate chairman after an incumbent CEO-chairman leaves — or explain why not to shareholders. The group is considering asking the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq to adopt listing rules that would require separate chairmen.

More U.S. companies are dividing the roles, but the trend is spreading slowly because many CEOs resist sharing power. About 37% of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index have separate chairmen and CEOs, up from 22% in 2002, according to the Corporate Library, a research firm in Portland, Maine.

I would expect this trend will grow as the economy comes under increasing government regulation.  Check out the story.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 10:08 am and is filed under Liberum Management Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.