Steve McCluski served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Bausch & Lomb Inc. until his retirement in 2007. He currently serves on the boards of ImmunoGen, Inc. Indevus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and SMSC’s. He spoke to Buster Houchins about how senior executives should look at board opportunities as they rise to the top of their organizations. 

Steve believes that you should pick a board that you will learn from – either it’s a field that you are interested in or an industry you are interested in. However he cautions that you also want to be in the position that you know you can contribute. 

He then advises you to look closely at the current board. How comfortable are you with the board members as people? How qualified do you think that they are?  What will your relationship with the CEO be like?  “I have seen situations where the CEO will/isn’t really looking forward to the board meetings. He or she doesn’t want to use the board but just looks at them as a necessary evil.  That’s not the kind of situation where you get involved in long term. You hope to have a situation where the CEO respects your views, the other board members respect your views and you can contribute.”

Steve’s counsel is that if you get comfortable with these issues then you go on to other things such as the governance procedures. Do you feel comfortable that it is an ethical company with a lot of the integrity? Do they have the processes and procedures in place? Do they have a future?

Of course as you go through the interview process, there are other issues you should look at but at the heart of it all, if you follow the above process, you will find yourself on a board where you can both contribute and gain from the experience.

If you are already on a board and are being invited to join others, how many should you accept? Here is Steve’s opinion: “I think if you are active business person probably one maybe two is probably the limit because when faced with a crisis, board work can be time consuming.  If you are semi retired, I personally feel that three public boards and a couple of private boards is adequate. Any more than that and you are starting to be stretching yourself a little thin. You will run into scheduling difficulties. You won’t be able to devote 100% of your time to all the boards. You will not be an active participant and you would be there in name only and not really contributing.”