Course content

    1. Presentation

    2. Recording

About this course

  • $79.00
  • 2 CPD hours
  • May 20, 2021

Course Description

This course is for directors, trustees, CEOs and corporate secretaries, as well as finance managers and executives who deal with boards.

This fast-paced two-hour seminar provides a refresher on key elements of practical board governance in Canada. The content includes differing models of board structure and oversight, the changing meaning of corporate purpose, dysfunctional incentives and how to fix them, board administration and committees, and best practices. Do you understand the agency versus entity approach to board governance? Do you have questions about how to make board minutes more useful? This course covers very broad issues as well as the administrivia involved in effective management of boards and governance processes.

Course Outline:

1. Stakeholders, shareholders and the board
  • Stakeholders versus investors
  • Corporate purpose and strategy
  • Agency or entity
  • Board models

2. Responsibilities and oversight
  • Statutes and regulations (corporation acts, securities regulation, insiders)
  • Board mandate
  • Committees (standing, ad hoc)
  • Duties of directors
  • Strategy, governance and risk management

3. “Fixing the game”
  • Real world, finance world
  • Dysfunctional incentives

4. Administrivia
  • Meetings and minutes
  • Communication to shareholders (regulatory, investor relations)

5. Role of the finance executive with the board

6. Conclusion
  • Impact of the pandemic
  • Big issue – Purpose
  • Medium issue – Governance
  • Little issue – Process

Instructor(s)

Jeffrey Sherman

Jeffrey D. Sherman is CEO of Terragram Investments Ltd. and CFO of Sun Residential REIT (TSXV: SRES), and has over 25 years’ experience as a corporate director and executive in real estate, high tech, biotechnology/medical, financial services, and business services. Mr. Sherman is a popular presenter, and a frequent course director and course author for many organizations including provincial associations of chartered professional accountants across Canada and has written many magazine articles and over twenty books including: Canadian Cash and Treasury Management, and Financial Instruments: A Guide for Financial Managers (published by Thomson-Reuters/Carswell), as well as Finance and Accounting PolicyPro (guide to governance, procedures, and internal control), and Strategy and Planning Toolkit for Small and Medium Businesses (all published or co-published by CPA Canada). Mr. Sherman has a B.Comm from Rotman Commerce (University of Toronto) and an M.B.A. from the Schulich School of Business and is an FCPA, FCA.