65. Nomination (definition)

NOTE: if you’re new to Ground-Up Governance, or are finding anything a bit strange or confusing, you might want to START HERE.

Different boards have different levels of authority and freedom to choose who is eligible to be elected as directors. Nomination is just a word that means choosing who is eligible for election. These differences in authority are kinda interesting (in a boring sort of way).

Lots of boards just get to decide for themselves who to nominate. Sometimes they make a nominating committee to help.

Sometimes a shareholder or member can nominate themselves and then campaign to other shareholders/members for their votes.

Sometimes shareholders, especially really powerful ones like the government is to a government agency, can just tell the corporation who is going to be on the board.

In all of these cases, shareholders or members still always have the final say because they’re the ones who get to vote in the election. Even the ones that are just window-dressing.

Lots of boards have more than one director and lots of corporations have more than one shareholder or member. And part of the board’s job is to do stuff that shareholders and members will like. Director nomination is really important to corporate governance considering how much authority the board has in a corporation, So figuring out how nomination will work matters a lot. Who gets to decide who’s nominated? Who *should* be nominated? Should we prioritize skills? Experience? Representation of the Eyelash community? Streetwear aficionados? Tarantula handlers? Apple-shaped cake identifiers? Now we’re creeping into a new topic, which we’ll talk about in the next post.