Cynthia Jamison: "In this Downturn Boards Should Focus on Liquidity and Incentive Plans."

0:00 -- Intro.

1:09 -- Start of interview.

1:37 -- Cindie's "origin story."

3:41 -- On her executive career before joining boards.

5:31 -- On her turnaround CFO career. Joining Tatum, an executive services firm, and her CFO turnaround/crisis practice. 

15:14-- Her transition to public company board service. Her first board role in 2003 with Horizon Organic Holdings (based in Denver, CO). "The CEO wanted a financial expert and a mom in the boardroom." Her second board, also in 2003, was with Tractor Supply. She later joined B&G Foods as it went public (based in New Jersey). She retired from her day job in 2013 and focused on her board career with four boards, including Office Depot, Darden Restaurants and Big Lots.

23:34 -- Her experience with high profile activist campaigns led by Jeffrey Smith from Starboard Value in Office Depot (2013) and Darden Restaurants (2014). "Darden is a tremendous success story, and it's really thanks to management [Gene Lee who became CEO, and Rick Cardenas who is the CEO now. They are the ones that made it happen."

30:15 -- Her thoughts on how to address the market downturn from the boardroom's perspective. "Boards should look at liquidity (~24 months) and incentive comp plans."

34:13 -- Her take on ESG. "I don't know who put E, S, and G together because they are three completely separate areas." "A lot of the political pressure is just a communications challenge." "Any topic du jour [and ESG falls in this category] is a luxury that you can only have when times are good." "When times get tough [like in current market down cycle], the focus is all on the top line and bottom line, anything else is a luxury. So I'm not surprised that people have pushed back against ESG, since they want better results and earnings, giving back to shareholders what they want to be getting." 

36:54 -- On the role of corporations in society. "ESG may be really important for society, but is it the company's job or the Government's job? Who should be policing it?" Reference to Milton Friedman's 1970 letter "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits."

39:11 -- On boardroom dynamics involving generational shifts (both on boards and C-suite), diversity and post pandemic trends. "The dynamics of human capital have changed." "I personally think that the next big push for board members is going to be human capital experts." 

47:25 -- On the evolution, opportunities and challenges of boardroom diversity.

55:10 -- The books have greatly influenced her life: she's a big fan of Anna Quindlen and Edith Wharton.

55:50 -- Her mentors, and what she learned from them.

56:48 -- Quotes she thinks of often or lives her life by: "You're never as good as you think you're are and you're never as bad as you think you are."

57:37 -- An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves: Orange Theory.

58:26 -- The living person she most admires: "The unsung hero."

Cynthia Jamison is a public company chair and board member; financial expert and retired turnaround CFO. She currently serves on the boards of Office Depot, Darden Restaurants and Big Lots.

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License