Foley & Lardner LLP is pleased to announce the recipient of its second annual National Directors Institute (NDI) Private Company Director of the Year award as Walter Winding, owner and president of Winding & Company.The award program was created in 2013 to acknowledge exceptional public and private company directors who have exhibited demonstrable leadership in the boardroom resulting in a significant impact on the level of corporate governance and performance at their company.

Roderick M. Hills, who led the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under President Ford and concluded that investment companies needed more freedom from regulation, has died. He was 83.

  He died Wednesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, said his wife, Carla Hills, a former U.S. secretary of housing and urban development and U.S. trade representative. The cause was surgical complications following heart problems, she said. Read the full obituary here.

This report, written for the owners, board members and executives of family-owned businesses, examines the concepts of governance as a strategic asset, and succession planning as an operational imperative; survey findings highlight opportunities for improvement and potential areas of focus for family-owned businesses.  Download it here.

In an opinion issued on September 4, 2014, In re Nine Systems Corp. Shareholders Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that a control group of stockholders and their director designees breached their fiduciary duties in approving a recapitalization of Nine Systems Corporation because the recapitalization was the result of an unfair process, even though it was accomplished at a fair price.

I recently returned from my college reunion… swept back in time to the days when living in my college bubble was a secure yet liberating environment.  Those were happy personal times – times of discovery, growth, socialization, and empowerment. Based on my experience working with ‘stuck’ companies, executives caught in a company bubble might not be having as much fun. Operating in a company bubble suggests you are isolated, cut off from outside perspectives.  Is your company operating in a bubble?

Do the Three Rules of exceptional performance apply to smaller companies? Differences in size and ownership structure, as well as resources and the demands of explosive growth, can make for a very different set of pressures and opportunities.

  Our nearly decade-long research project into the determinants of superior, long-term profitability has led us to conclude that when it comes to at least three critical choices, exceptional performance is indeed a function of a company’s ability to follow these rules: