Boards encourage good performance

by Catherine Woods - Wednesday, 28th November 2007 - (1) comment

AES Engineering founder Chris Rea reckons one of the best ways to improve the quality of your managers is to create a board of directors.

Rea installed the first board at the mechanical seal company nearly two decades ago.

“It was becoming obvious to me that our managers were comfortable and complacent with corridor meetings,” he says. “They had no vision or understanding of the need to properly plan, report and prepare. They needed to change and improve.”

Rea recommends picking board members who will have managers quaking in their boots when they enter the board room.

“If you have heavyweight board members who your managers can’t quite figure out, it really improves their performance. That is also true for people like me,” he says.

AES Engineering’s board is certainly heavyweight. Among the members is former Conservative party leader William Hague.

The company is valued at £100m. Rea says the board is "probably a board of directors capable of running a business many times this size".

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1 Comments

November 30, 2007 11:50am
Glen Hopkinson Says:

Business angels generally like to get very involved with the companies in which they invest and can provide direction at board level within early stage businesses, helping to improve the performance of the management team. Finding a business angel who matches the company’s requirements in terms of experience can be difficult but a number of online solutions are now emerging. Sites such as http://www.mydealmaker.co.uk/ offer a way for entrepreneurs to connect online with investors who can propel their business to success.