There is an on-going debate about whether one person should be allowed to combine the roles of chairman and chief executive. We look at both sides of the argument, studies, statistics and examples of companies with both a separate and combined chairman and CEO and analyse the issue from the perspective of our Golden Rules of Corporate Governance.
Back in 1992 in the UK the Cadbury Committee, tasked with making recommendations to improve corporate governance, produced a seminal report. In this report, in the section making recommendations about Best Practice regarding the Board, it made a clear statement of its considered views about the chairman on p 21 of the Report, which is worth repeating verbatim:
Given the importance and particular nature…
