Asset Management for Directors
Today’s board directors are faced with an increasingly complex operating environment. There is greater scrutiny from shareholders and regulators, and a diminishing ability to predict the future based on past experience. Despite this, the board uses its best collective judgement to continue to make decisions in the best interests of the company.
Asset Management for Directors aims to provide a clear framework for directors to address their asset management obligations. Creating value from the company’s assets is a key responsibility of the board and forms part of its fiduciary duty. In this sense, board directors are asset managers.
In 2014 internationally accepted standards for asset management were published for the first time in the ISO 5500x suite of standards. These standards provide a useful guideline for companies on world leading asset management practices.
Through the context of the board’s governance roles, this book outlines the importance of asset management from the board’s perspective. The key points directors need to know about asset management are provided, without addressing technical aspects in too much detail. Rather, the book aims to inform the director who is not necessarily an expert in asset management on the fundamental knowledge they need to understand their company’s asset management practices and to ask pertinent questions of management.
Asset Management for Directors also provides guidance for executives and asset management specialists on the aspects of asset management that are of most interest to the board and advice on how they can best ensure that they provide relevant and timely information to inform board decision making.
Each chapter includes a brief case study to highlight how the principles are applied in practice. These case studies cover a wide range of industries and help to illustrate the array of asset types, both tangible and intangible, that boards are responsible for.
About the Author
Dr. Monique Beedles is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) and has over 15 years’ experience as a director on boards of private and public companies, not-for-profit organisations, professional bodies and government entities. She is a facilitator for the AICD programs on governance, strategy and risk. Dr. Beedles holds a PhD in corporate strategy and is one of the first professionals globally to become a Certified Asset Management Assessor under the ISO 55000 suite of international asset management standards.