Boards of Directors

An active Board of outside directors can serve a number of functions, including assisting family business owners to deal with feelings of isolation in their daily struggle to survive and to excel, heightening accountability of the business as well as improving quality of corporate decision making and planning without significant loss of privacy. And yet, 57.7% of family businesses do NOT have a formal Board of Directors; 85.3% of family businesses do NOT have non-family executive directors on their Boards; and 86.3% do NOT have non-family, non-executive directors on their Boards. The main reasons provided are: a desire to retain privacy, 52.5%; and skills required at Board level exist in-house, 29.0%.