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NACD

This newly released handbook guides corporate directors through the kind of planning that can save valuable time and minimize damage when trouble does arise. Topics include:

The role of the board in crisis response planning

How to create your own board’s crisis response plan

Legal, communications, and financial considerations during a crisis

How to find and hire a turnaround manager

…And much more.

Five Reasons Your Board Should Plan for a Crisis Now

1. Decreasing the number of decisions that must be made in the early stages of a crisis helps avoid mistakes that can be quite expensive.

2. Many events that have led to massive losses in shareholder value have begun as manageable problems that then escalated to disastrous proportion.

3. When a crisis situation arrives, some actions that management may propose could have liability implications for the board.

4. Expert advisors -- often critical to a successful crisis response -- are not easy to find and retain. Building relationships in advance can save time and money.

5. Just the exercise of thinking through your company’s specific risk factors and planning for a crisis response can prevent the crisis from actually happening!

About the Authors:

Suzanne Hopgood is the President and CEO of The Hopgood Group, LLC, a business and workout consulting firm she founded in 1985. During the past ten years she has assisted a variety of companies in facing difficult business, financial and legal challenges and crises, serving at various times as a turnaround CEO, as chairman of the board of directors of two troubled public companies, as chair of public company nominating, governance and audit committees as well as a member of strategic planning and CEO search committees. She has twice served as a member of board slates elected in proxy contests initiated by institutional investors. Ms Hopgood is a member of the teaching faculty of the National Association of Corporate Directors and is an active educator, facilitator and mediator for boards of a wide variety of public and private companies on behalf of the NACD. She is a frequent writer and speaker on corporate governance issues. Prior to founding The Hopgood Group, LLC, Ms Hopgood was responsible for a $1 billion equity real estate portfolio for Aetna Realty Investors, a subsidiary of Aetna. She received a B.S. degree in business administration from the University of New Hampshire in 1971.

Mike Tankersley is a partner of Bracewell & Giuliani LLP and serves as the group leader for its corporate practice based in Dallas, Texas. He is a member of the firm’s Investigations and Special Situations practice group, which provides legal support to boards and management teams responding to governmental investigations and prosecutions, shareholder litigation, instances of financial and other fraud and other occurrences raising complex issues of legal compliance and strategy. He has assisted $1+ billion asset companies in responding to financial crises, compliance with federal securities and state fiduciary obligations and effecting restructuring and sale transactions both in and outside of bankruptcy proceedings. He is a frequent writer and speaker on business law subjects and serves as an NACD teaching faculty member. He was Chairman of the Business Law Section of the State Bar of Texas 1997-1998, and served as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law from 1986 to 1992. He received bachelors and master of accounting degrees from Rice University in 1977 and 1978 and his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1980.