Gupta Governance Institute Joins National Association of Corporate Directors Education Network
The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), the authority on boardroom practices representing more than 21,000 corporate board members, today announced the formation of a network of leading governance education providers to better prepare current and future board directors for the rigors of the increasingly complex and challenging work of directorship. Stanford University’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance is the founding member of the NACD Education Network™ and is joined by Columbia Business School Executive Education and Drexel University’s Raj & Kamla Gupta Governance Institute.
Building on NACD Directorship Certification®, which puts directors on the leading-edge of governance issues and demonstrates their commitment to the profession of directorship, the NACD Education Network™ enables NACD Directorship Certified™ individuals to earn recertification credits towards their certification through participation in leading director programs provided at world-class universities across the country and around the world. NACD Directorship Certification® requires recertification every two years through 32 hours of continuous learning at recognized programs.
The launch of the Education Network features leading director education programs such as the Stanford Rock Center Directors College, Columbia Business Schools Executive Education Corporate Governance Program, and Drexel LeBow’s Gupta Governance Institute Directors Dialogue.
“This is an important initiative at a critical time for business. The challenges directors – and their boards – face call for education built on deep experiential insights coupled with quantitative rigor. Columbia Business School Executive Education is proud to join with NACD and the growing network of institutions across the US, and around the globe, to help directors meet these challenges through the highest quality continuing education that our universities represent,” said Shivaram Rajgopal, Faculty Director of the Corporate Governance Program at Columbia Business School Executive Education.
“The economic, political, and social disruptions of this year have called attention to the increasingly complex and ever-changing role of a corporate board member,” Alyssa Abbott, interim director of the Gupta Governance Institute, added. “NACD’s foresight to convene renowned governance institutions from leading universities underscores the tremendous value that research and scholarship bring to director education. The Raj & Kamla Gupta Governance Institute at Drexel’s LeBow College of Business is proud be a part of the NACD Directorship Certification Education Network to collaboratively advance and elevate the directorship profession into the future.”
NACD will collaborate with leading academic institutions across the country that meet NACD’s director education standards. The goal for the network is to help today’s directors to enhance their knowledge, skills and abilities to discharge their duties as effectively as possible, as their companies continue to face existential challenges, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic uncertainty. The network also aims to provide a strong foundation for future directors, who increasingly come from diverse backgrounds and experiences.
“The complexity of the issues that boards face, and the speed of change, means that directors face a more challenging and competitive environment than ever before. And that means director education takes on a new urgency,” said Peter R. Gleason, CEO of NACD. “Forming a network of world-class providers of executive education to pair with NACD’s cutting-edge education programming and certification will help directors chart a path to future success for their companies.”
Plans are underway to expand the network to include additional nationally and internationally recognized institutions.
