The winners of the 2024 Private Company Boards of the Year Awards may vary in service offerings – operating in such areas as food service, private investing and construction – but they all have one thing in common: a commitment to stellar corporate governance.
The awards, now in their ninth year, are presented by Private Company Director, Family Business and Directors & Boards magazines at the annual Private Company Governance Summit. They were created to recognize private companies that go above and beyond legal governance requirements and commit to the highest levels of governance, whether through fiduciary or advisory boards. The awards honor the performance of the board as a whole.
The awards recognize fiduciary boards as well as advisory boards. Fiduciary board awards were categorized by company revenues and ownership type.
The Private Company Governance Summit, which will celebrate its 12th anniversary May 15-17 at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City in Washington, D.C., is the only national conference focused on the unique governance challenges faced by owners, shareholders, directors and advisory board members of closely held, family-owned and private equity-owned companies.
While over 20 private company boards were nominated for the 2024 Private Company Boards of the Year Awards, seven stood out for their diligence, standards and best practices.
Here are the seven boards chosen for this year’s recognition. Check out our past winners.
Golden Corral Corporation
Type of Private Company Board: Fiduciary
Approximate Annual Company Revenues: More than 1 billion
Company Ownership: Family-Owned
Golden Corral Corporation is a family restaurant chain specializing in a buffet dining experience with nearly 400 company-operated and franchise restaurants located in 42 states serving approximately three million guests each week.
Governance highlights include:
- The board features ethnic and gender diversity, with directors experienced in family dining and casual dining, as well as elsewhere in the foodservice industry and completely outside the food industry.
- The chairman and CEO roles are split. The board chair is a member of the family that owns the business and the CEO is a nonfamily executive.
- The board has helped to shift the company culture, incorporating technology and harnessing it as a tool to help grow the business.
Cathedral Holdings Inc.
Type of Private Company Board: Fiduciary
Approximate Annual Company Revenue: $100 million to $350 million
Company Ownership: ESOP
Cathedral Holdings Inc. is a leading specialty chemical distributor with three business units: Essential Ingredients, focused on personal care; IndSpyre Solutions, targeting new market segments in industrial applications; and Forium Solutions, offering solutions for third party warehousing and sampling services.
Governance highlights include:
- The board developed and executed a successful CEO succession plan over a two-year period, resulting in a smooth transition of the CEO in 2022.
- The board values diversity, with two women currently on the board of Latino and Asian heritage, as well as two diverse men who will be joining the board in May 2024.
- The board’s decided to ensure that all employees receive a living wage of $57,000 or more.
Restek Corporation
Type of Private Company Board: Fiduciary
Approximate Annual Company Revenue: $100 million to $350 million
Company Ownership: ESOP
Restek Corporation is a leading developer and manufacturer of chromatography columns, sample preparation and collection products, reference standards, and instrument accessories.
Governance highlights include:
- The CEO and chair roles are split to ensure independence and governance best practices.
- The board has developed a compensation philosophy that factors in the three components of base pay, bonuses and long-term incentives.
- The board performs both annual self-evaluation as well as evaluations of the CEO. They also execute detailed meeting performance assessments after each board meeting.
Yakima Chief Hops
Type of Private Company Board: Fiduciary
Approximate Annual Company Revenue: $350 million to $1 billion
Company Ownership: Cooperative
Yakima Chief Hops is a 100% grower-owned, global hop supplier focused on providing premium quality hops and uncompromising service.
Governance highlights include:
- The board features a rigorous outside audit process and disciplined financial, strategic, budgeting and reporting systems overseen by an audit committee chaired by a financial expert.
- The board engages in annual succession planning and bench-strength analysis of all key positions.
- They undergo a transparent board refreshment process, including clear communication about term limits during the recruitment process.
HEI Civil
Type of Private Company Board: Fiduciary
Approximate Annual Company Revenue: $100 million to $350 million
Company Ownership: Closely Held
HEI Civil is one of the top construction companies in Colorado, providing superior heavy civil general contracting services.
Governance highlights include:
- The board has implemented a governance decision matrix, created effective board committees and established a risk management framework.
- They managed a leadership and ownership transition in 2023, successfully executing a CEO succession plan and the founder’s equity buyout.
- The board designed a rigorous budget process with a management incentive plan tied to budget and strategic objectives.
E.A. Sween Company
Type of Private Company Board: Fiduciary
Approximate Annual Company Revenue: $100 million to $350 million
Company Ownership: Family-Owned
E.A. Sween Company makes over 70 million sandwiches a year, distributing them all over the country through wholesale and combined distribution centers.
Governance highlights include:
- There is a split between the roles of CEO and chair, with the chair overseeing board service and the chair serving as a conduit into the company and fully empowered to make decisions with his leadership team.
- Board committees meet prior to the company’s three board meetings per year, allowing board meetings to be more strategic and to avoid getting too into the weeds.
- The board consistently rotates members off to avoid stagnation and it uses a skills matrix to ensure it brings on directors with relevant and needed experience.
Linqto Inc.
Type of Private Company Board: Fiduciary
Approximate Annual Company Revenue: Less than $100 million
Company Ownership: Investor-Owned
Linqto is a leading private equity platform, empowering retail and accredited investors to explore private market investment in shares of top pre-IPO companies.
Governance highlights include:
- The board has undergone significant transformation, from initially having one independent director to today’s majority independent board.
- They oversaw a significant leadership transition, with the founder/CEO becoming board chair/president and a new CEO having been appointed in 2024.
- The board continues to build and tighten the governance structure for the board and company, establishing committee structure, which in turn led to formalizing compensation policy, reporting structure and succession plan.