Oliver Cummings: Unlocking Boardroom Excellence - Insights from Nurole's CEO

(0:00) Intro. (1:20) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel. (2:07) Start of interview.  (2:58) Oliver's origin story. (7:00) His experience in private equity with PE-backed boards. (9:57) About the mission and focus of Nurole, the UK-based board search firm where he serves as CEO.  (12:27) On Nurole's network of 65,000+ board leaders (two parts: free and paid offerings). (20:16) Demystifying the board search process, four key stages:Briefing stageSourcing processAssessment phaseOnboarding (ongoing support) (25:19) From a board candidate perspective. (28:14) On board evaluations. (32:44) Common characteristics of directors in board placements (they place ~1,000 directors per year). (33:50) On board culture and values of directors. (37:00) On specialized directors. (43:16) Differences between UK and US boards.Role of the ChairBoard searchBoard compensationLitigation Risk (48:35)  Other board issues to consider: 1) are boards generating value, and 2) revisiting board education. (52:48) About his podcast Enter the Boardroom. (55:15) His favorite episodes: Roger Martin,  Baroness Helena Morrissey and Sir Richard Dearlove. (59:20) Books that have greatly influenced his life: The Aeneid, by Virgil (19 BC)Mindset, by Carol Dweck (2006)How Will You Measure Your Life, by Clay Christensen  (2012) (01:00:30) His mentors.  (01:02:13) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by. (01:03:16) An unusual habit or absurd thing that he loves: the Eglu chicken coop. (01:04:45)  The living person he most admires. Oliver Cummings is the CEO of Nurole, a UK-based board search firm with 65,000+ members globally and about 1,000 board placements per year. He's also the host of the Enter the Boardroom Podcast. You can follow Evan on social media at: Twitter: @evanepstein LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/  Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ You can join as a Patron of the Boardroom Governance Podcast at: Patreon: patreon.com/BoardroomGovernancePod __ 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