“Corporate Directors (or Trustees in Not-for-Profits) along with the Board’s Trusted Advisors are the direct representatives of the shareholders.  This holds true for both public as well as privately held companies where executive leadership is often also the owner(s).  In both cases, Directors must have the competency, insight, integrity and the most importantly the courage to do the right thing even if it means conflict with the executives or even the owner/executives.”

- John L Verna
CEO AICBA

About the AICBA

Founding of the American Institute of Certified Board Advisors
formerly the Center for Strategic Business Integrity

The AICBA was founded in 2014 by a small group of dedicated professionals with direct experience managing, sometimes preventing or resolving corporate crises. The relevant crises were triggered by poor strategic decision making and/or the breakdown of organizational integrity sometimes coupled with economic challenges. These crises occurred in some of America’s greatest and most well-respected enterprises.

The founding Group of the AICBA included highly skilled professionals with experience gained from many World-renowned professional service firms and corporate enterprises including PriceWaterhouseCoopers, E&Y, KPMG, Kroll Associates, McKinsey & Company, Booz Allen Hamilton, Alvarez & Marsal, Alex Partners, Protiviti, Korn Ferry and many others.

From their unique perspective having dealt with such infamous disasters as PG&E, Enron, WorldCom, General Motors, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Phar Mor, Orange County California, Citigroup, Fannie Mae, Global Crossing, PennCentral/Conrail, MF Global, and many, many others large and small, over a period of almost half a century, a critical insight was formed. Many, if not all, of these tragic organizational collapses, might have been avoided or mitigated if individual Corporate Board Directors, supported by their Trusted Advisors, had courageously stepped forward at the right time with competent decision-making and decisive Board Level executive oversight skills.

The AICBA believes that Directors supported by their Trusted Advisors must proactively direct and monitor Executive Leadership. They must do so with individual competence and integrity. They must be highly qualified. We believe that Director’s and their Trusted Advisor’s skills should be certified to provide some level of assurance to all Stakeholders that they are prepared to perform their critical roles. At its core this means directing an organization through crisis, selecting its executive leadership, guiding it to greater things, protecting it from corruption and abuse.

In the United Sates there is no law requiring the certification of Director and Board Advisor skills. The AICBA believes that this is a serious strategic, regulatory omission. This obvious insight led us to develop our mission: Professionalize the role of Corporate Directorship by ensuring the decision-making, oversight and crisis management competency of individual Directors as well as their Trusted Advisors through certification.

We believe that the individual with the “right stuff” is the key to improved, professionalized Board Directorship and Trusted Advise.

We hope you will join us in this vital mission.

John L Verna
CEO