The best advice for a board member is to internalize that "anything can happen." Dambisa Moyo cites personal experiences—a CEO dying in office, a stock collapsing from $60 to $7, and a massive acquisition everyone deemed impossible—as proof that boards must be prepared for extreme, unpredictable events.
Dambisa Moyo credits her strong judgment to growing up in Zambia, a non-ideological society. This forced her to be skeptical of all prescribed models (e.g., Keynesian vs. free market), a trait she finds invaluable for nuanced decision-making in corporate governance and global investing.
Dambisa Moyo contrasts the boards of Chevron (engineering-heavy, "all IQ") and Starbucks (consumer-focused, "largely EQ"). Both are highly effective, proving a board's composition should reflect the company's unique cultural DNA rather than conform to a universal template for success.
The most effective board chairs facilitate open discussion by asking every member for their assessment on a critical issue *before* sharing their own view. This simple practice prevents groupthink and avoids the risk of directors feeling pressured to conform to the leader's stated opinion.
Since CEO candidates are already qualified, interviews should skip past achievements. Instead, boards should probe how candidates would navigate implausible but possible "black swan" scenarios, like sudden deglobalization or a tripling in capital costs, to truly test their strategic thinking and adaptability.
Serving on a non-profit board provides better training for corporate directorship than many realize. It forces decision-making among competing stakeholders with multiple bottom lines in a constrained budget, developing a more nuanced judgment than a for-profit's singular focus on shareholder value.
General Partners often focus solely on delivering returns, but Limited Partners like family offices have unique goals and risk appetites (e.g., tolerance for delayed returns). GPs who invest time to understand these deeper motivations can build stronger, more aligned, and more resilient partnerships.
While the endowment model is popular, its implementation via managers with high portfolio churn (like long-short funds) is ill-suited for family offices. Unlike tax-exempt endowments, taxable investors suffer the full cost of frequent trading, requiring a modified, more tax-aware strategy.
New board members don't start with a clean slate; they arrive in the middle of an ongoing story. A director's first job is to quickly decipher the existing dynamics, plotlines, and key players—the 'protagonist' and the 'martyr'—to become effective.