Marico Board Independence

A common question raised by many industry observers is – What constitutes a good board. There are many indicators to a good board – Members meeting regularly for meetings, good Audit committees, an established code of ethics and many more. But even while having such conventional roles of boards, procedures and following mandates by law a lot of companies failed. The list of such companies is long – Enron, Adelphia, WorldCom.

Some people blamed it on the lack of independence of the boards; but it was not true on all counts, with board makeup being generally the same for both failed and successful companies (read well managed companies). While board independence is generally accepted as good practice, it is Marico which makes it effective by

The board of Marico has great trust in the way it functions. A lot of independence is given to show the way for the company. This is easily reflected if one sees the board composition of Marico. There are nine people who compose Marico’s board (a very balanced number to add considering it is also regarded as a benchmark for an effective board). Out of them only Harish Mariwala, the founder of the company stands representing his family (other than Rajen Mariwala, his cousin, but holds a Non-Executive role). In this way Harish Mariwala has decentralized a lot of his power from himself and from people he may have an influence on. This makes Marico’s board much more independent from other boards.

Succession Planning is one more aspect that the founder member is particular about. With neither the son or daughter of the founder at the helm, Saugata Gupta leads Marico as its CEO. Careful succession planning reinstates confidence among the board members that the company decision dynamics are

The Marico board is a vital accomplice which is included in co-making authoritative and key vision, acquisitions and progression arranging and have been effective in making two-way correspondence and including back the skill of the Board to the business. The right environment is made by the organization which empowers the board to work adequately. The Board individuals guide the initiative group now and again. It additionally assesses its execution opposite the contract and partners desires, taking input from the administration and in addition doing a self-assessment on parameters such as board elements, substantive issues they ought to concentrate on and the data