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Advice on director selection

The NED is developing its consulting service further this autumn to help managers and their advisors on the selection of fund directors. It is doing this at a time when various matters, from outside the industry, are colliding with this business. The NED believes that decisions on board appointments in future should include consideration of these external factors.  The NED’s director selection advice service includes information on:

•   Directors by jurisdiction

•   Investors’ perspective

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Time to define

The industry needs an independent fund director working definition

The City of London is where many fund managers – and The NED – have their offices. In the restaurants and bars around this area of town the expected independent fund director boom in the UK has been a frequent topic of discussion this summer.

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Director DDQ breakthrough

A detailed and comprehensive Director’s DDQ has been developed by Mark Flanagan of Aon Hewitt, after a period of consultation across the industry. He says other investment consultants, such as Mercer and Towers Watson were included in this consultation as were leading fund directors in the main international fund jurisdictions. Mark Flanagan adds that he also had feedback from a lot of managers.

Mark Flanagan makes the point that investors are becoming much more interested in fund governance, in general, and in the appointment of board directors, in particular.

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Director selection: overhaul needed

The NED has engaged in an extensive consultation exercise with directors on matters connected to board appointments. This was in preparation for research that has just started with managers and advisors on this topic.

It appears that director selection is a pretty random process; it often come down to who you know. Qualifications are of course important but contacts are generally even more so. Until The NED undertook its recent consultation exercise for the research study it is doing on director selection, we were not aware just how random selection can be.

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Director remuneration: time for more flexibility?

Developments in risk governance are testing long standing director remuneration arrangements. This is especially the case in the two main international fund jurisdictions of the EU: Ireland and Luxembourg.

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