Boards Archives - Page 2 of 5

Public companies should report on Diversity to their shareholders

There is enough evidence of the value of diversity on corporate boards now to do something truly visible about it. We deal with Say-on-Pay every year now at the public board level, so why not Report-on-Diversity?Say-on-Pay is a result of the Dodd-Frank Act. It says that the shareholders get to vote on whether they approve executive pay or not. It's non-binding - ie. "advisory" but boards take it very seriously. They have to. Executive pay is a contentious issue, highly paid consulting firms like ISS and Glass-Lewis opine on whether [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-10T13:29:12-08:00December 12, 2012|Boards, Equality|0 Comments

Autonomy, Revenue Recognition and the Duping of HP

HP's acquisition of Autonomy, and subsequent write down of $8.8B amid allegations of fraud by the Autonomy management team, is going to show up as a business school study one of these days, and so it should. The practice of revenue recognition in software, and how you can be misled by it, is simply not well understood by enough senior management and board members. And as companies shift their software products from license to subscription revenue it becomes imperative that board members do understand it or they can be easily [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:56:37-08:00November 21, 2012|Boards|0 Comments

Why activist shareholders travel in packs

Have you ever wondered why activist shareholders travel in packs? It's because they are significantly less effective alone—just like any other minority on a board. Activists (often hedge funds) accumulate a position in a stock because they want to make change happen at a company and, by making change happen, they will make money on their investment. It may be that they think the company is being mismanaged and so is undervalued against its potential. It may be that they think it should be broken up and the pieces sold [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-10T13:36:39-08:00June 5, 2012|Boards|0 Comments

How to understand your board’s baffling behavior

Boards don't behave like management teams and their sometimes seemingly baffling behavior can be an irritant to management. But if you can get inside the head and motivation of a board member you can, with a little distortion of the nth dimension, understand their behavior.Whether it's a public company board, a start up board or a non-profit board there are perspectives a board member has that give them a very different view than the senior management team:1. They don't live it every day. Some board members do a better job [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T16:59:35-08:00March 7, 2012|Boards, Leadership|0 Comments

Netflix and how last minute filings can bite you

Filings, like any other piece of finished work, have a tendency to go to the last minute but in the case of your 10-K it's a mistake to let that happen.Case in point - Netflix last week. They filed their 10-K just 36 seconds before the Friday night SEC deadline and so Michelle Leder - the author of the footnoted.org blog - went digging for dirt. She has an assumption, often proven to be correct, that last minute filings are last minute precisely because they are contentious in some way. [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:00:26-08:00February 17, 2012|Boards|0 Comments

WSGR and conflict waivers in Silicon Valley

I've used Wilson Sonsini as my outside counsel for more than 15 years now. Like many a tech CEO, I was introduced to Larry Sonsini very early on as a green CEO, grew up with the firm, stayed loyal because of their incredible advice, got frustrated by their lack of follow through on the small stuff, and became fast friends with several partners at the firm. A very typical Silicon Valley tech story I have in common with CEOs at large and small companies in the valley.But because WSGR is [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:03:59-08:00September 20, 2011|Boards|0 Comments

It’s not a bubble – the difference between valuation and long term value

Living in Silicon Valley, running a software company with big ambitions I hear the question a lot. Is this another tech bubble? Isn't is going to burst again? The short answer is no. Pundits covering tech tend to confuse valuation with long term value. We may well be in a valuation bubble but unlike the 2000 tech bubble the companies in question have deep, sustainable revenue models. There are certainly some high valuations - per Fred Wilson's view of frothy valuations in April - and these are driven by investor [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:04:29-08:00August 22, 2011|Boards|1 Comment

Today’s tech bubble: Sell or IPO your company?

If you had the chance to sell your tech company for a great price would you - or would you play the long game?This is a decision successful entrepreneurs end up facing and is a question for some tech entrepreneurs right now as we go through what is arguably another bubble - and there are some very interesting cases to think about - and think what would you have done?Consider the Huffington Post: A success story to most people - purchased by AOL for $315M in February at a 6.3X [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:05:07-08:00July 25, 2011|Boards|0 Comments

Are LinkedIn’s bankers greedy or stupid… or making a market?

A lot has been written about the frothy LinkedIn IPO in the last week and the investment bankers can't win either way but I believe in the end they are doing their job and making a market.On one end of the criticism you have Evan Newmark at the WSJ saying that IPO buyers are LinkedIn Stupidity. He wrote that "tonight’s IPO buyers need not worry. Common sense generally has little to do with the IPO market – and absolutely nothing to do with the LinkedIn IPO" and accuses Morgan Stanley [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:06:35-08:00May 25, 2011|Boards|3 Comments

Insider trading between Rajat and Raj – you really can’t make this stuff up

Sometimes news comes along that is so out of line I would believe it was fiction unless I saw it with my own eyes - you just could not make this stuff up!Today Rajat Gupta - a highly respected former McKinsey senior partner and former board member at both Goldman Sachs and Proctor and Gamble was charged by the SEC with insider trading. What is astonishing about this charge is the SEC's press release reads like a soap opera.For example - Rajat is on a Goldman Sachs board call discussing [...]

By Penny Herscher|2017-12-06T17:09:06-08:00March 3, 2011|Boards|0 Comments