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CONFERENCE

Dr. John Carver

      John Carver’s Policy Governance® model is an empowering and fundamental redesign of how boards should spend their time, what they should worry about and create policies on, and how they should delegate to and monitor performance of management. A radical departure from both the rubber stamp and the trivia-beset board processes we know so well, the model was said by Sir Adrian Cadbury (author of UK’s eminent Cadbury Report) to be “as near a universal theory of governance that we at present have.” His message is not that boards should strive toward the widely accepted ideal in board process and structure. His message is that the prevalent, tradition-blessed, currently-taught ideal itself is flawed. His work is applicable to nonprofit (NGO), governmental, and corporate boards.

      John Carver challenges and reinterprets so much of the prevailing wisdom about boards as to introduce a complete revolution in the accepted board process: a powerful, new technology of governance. His approach gives fresh meaning not only to management accountability, but to management empowerment as well. The new model enables boards to shed their trivia, control without meddling, keep their focus on long term outcomes, and--while remaining apart from the exercise of management--to lead.

     In addition to Boards That Make A Difference (1990; 2nd ed., 1997), John Carver on Board Leadership (2001), and Corporate Boards That Create Value: Governing Company Performance from the Boardroom (co-authored with Caroline Oliver, 2002), he has co-authored along with his wife, Miriam Mayhew Carver, A New Vision of Board Leadership: Governing the Community College (1994); Reinventing Your Board: A Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing Policy Governance (1997); and a series of booklets, The CarverGuide Series on Effective Board Governance. His writings range across a wide variety of publications, including the London Times, Trustee, Solicitors’ Journal, Economic Development Review, Practice of Ministry in Canada, Association Management,, Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Corporate Board, Corporate Governance – An International Review, as well as the Jossey-Bass bi-monthly, Board Leadership, co-edited with Miriam Carver. He has published in 8 countries in 4 languages.

     John Carver has 15 years experience as CEO of several public service organizations and a national trade association, 4 years in small manufacturing, plus 25 years of consulting with clients ranging from very small to over US$150 billion in revenues. While most of his work has been in the United States and Canada, he has done limited consulting in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and South America. He holds Adjunct Professorships at the University of Georgia Institute for Nonprofit Organizations, and at York University’s Schulich School of Business, Toronto.

     He holds B.S. and M.Ed. degrees from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in business/economics and in education, and a Ph.D. from Emory University (Atlanta) in psychology. John grew up in Tennessee and served as a young man in the US Air Force. Since mid-1995, he and his wife, Miriam, live in Atlanta, engaged in independent governance consulting careers.