HEADSAHEAD invited participants to a practical forum entitled “Professionalizing Supervisory Board Work” in July. It became clear that the issues facing supervisory board chairmen are as pressing as they are complex. The exchange is beneficial – and is to be continued at the request of all.

It was a unique – and, as it turned out, essential – round that HEADSAHEAD, in cooperation with the renowned business law firm Linklaters LLP, facilitated on July 5 in Düsseldorf. 18 chairmen of supervisory and advisory boards of companies from all over Germany came together at the invitation of the executive search consultancy and discussed the topic of “ “Professionalization of Supervisory Board work”.

“From our own supervisory board activities, we know that there is little competent and practical exchange on this,” explained Stefan Eltgen, Partner at HEADSAHEAD and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of J. Bünting Beteiligungs AG. “We wanted to close this gap with our interactive practical forum. The exchange should be able to take place openly and in a confidential manner, which is why we deliberately chose a small, personal setting.”

Supervisory boards: The character has to match

Right at the beginning of the event at the Industrieclub, it became clear that the professionalization of supervisory board activities is more than just a buzzword. “It is rather the clear demand of the legislator as a reaction to developed distrust in the self-regulatory powers of the supervisory bodies,” clarified Prof. Dr. Hans-Ulrich Wilsing, lawyer and partner at Linklaters LLP as well as experienced management and supervisory board consultant, in a keynote speech.

Open and ready for discussion, the invited participants raised the issues that were urgent for them. One of them: the necessary optimal staffing of mandates. “At least as important as professional competencies are soft factors such as personal character traits of supervisory board members,” Prof. Dr. Wilsing found.

Astrid Hamker, entrepreneur and member of supervisory and advisory boards of family businesses as well as chairwoman of the advisory board of Seier GmbH, also saw the right composition of supervisory and advisory boards as a success factor for professionalization: “The challenge is to attract personalities who represent ‘diversity’ in terms of their experience and expertise as well as their character. Thanks to many different perspectives, a comprehensive reflection is possible, which provides the board and management with a multitude of impulses and, in a dynamic environment, certainly questions ‘the usual’ and ‘the tried and tested’,” she explained.

Many duties, high pressure – low compensation

Ursula Opper, who as a partner at HEADSAHEAD specializes in filling supervisory and advisory board mandates and is the initiator of the practice forum, saw her observations confirmed by the discussion: “The role of the supervisory board chairman as well as his relationship to the company’s management have changed. Through its entrepreneurial advisory role on the one hand and its supervisory function on the other, the diversity of its tasks was emphasized by the discussants,” she explained. “The chairman of the supervisory board must be an all-rounder who fundamentally understands the company and is also aware of his responsible role in a changing corporate reality and takes it on with a high level of commitment. And trust must always be the basis of cooperation between him and management.”

Hamker emphasized the special task of the chairman of the supervisory board to “orchestrate” the body and then “ensure, like a conductor, that in the end decisions are made in favor of the company.”

However, the complexity of the ever-increasing tasks and the increased liability risk are not reflected in the remuneration, the discussants agreed. “The professionalization of supervisory board work increasingly called for by legislators and also the Government Commission on the German Corporate Governance Code in recent years stands in marked contrast to developments at the compensation level, where the office of supervisory board member – especially in smaller companies – is often still treated like an honorary office,” Wilsing criticized.

Practice Forum is continued

The unanimous wish of the participants for a continuation showed how helpful the exchange at eye level was: “We will maintain the format of this interactive event and meet again in the same round,” announced Ralf Kreutzberg, Managing Partner at HEADSAHEAD. “There is a lot of interest and need to exchange ideas on specific topics in a competent setting.”

The initiators and organizers: Ralf Kreutzberg, Stefan Eltgen and Ursula Opper from HEADSAHEAD and Klaus Möllerfriedrich, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Gesco AG (from left to right).

Read more in our interview: “Companies need professional competencies in the work of the supervisory board”.