When discussing governance, we are talking about those who runs the business. Is it an owner, a shareholder, a partners, a trust or a board of directors? If you are a shareholder, why is it beneficial to have a board of directors? What does a board of director do? When should you have a board of director and how many members should you have? No matter the size of your company, you will always benefit from a board of director. The reason is the board of director should be formed of people with a lot of experience running business to help you manage yours. Their job is to support and provide guidance to you and your business. A good board of director should consist of people that have extensive experience in your industry, finance, human resources, internal audits, politics, engineering and people that have common interests. The amount of board of directors depends on the size and complexity of your operations. Also, a board of director should always be independent, meaning it shouldn't include employees of the company as employees have agendas and they could persuade or motivate you to follow their agenda. For example, an executive could vote to increase her/his salary or give her/himself a bonus since it's the board of director who makes these type of decisions.
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A board of director is charged of hiring the executives of the company, renewing their performance and fixing their compensation structure.
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They should approve the controls and policies, the strategy, the mission, the vision and the values. They should also clearly communicate these concept to the entire company to prevent uncertainties and ambiguities.
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When a board of director is made up of several members, they sometime form committees and sub committees to take on specific projects, like creating a hiring committee to recruit new board members or executives. This is to relive board members that are not experts in those maters and are not really interested in that type of project. Instead of calling a general meeting with all the board members, the committee will meet without the entire board members.
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There is always value in having a board of director, you just have to determine your needs and the value of having a board of director.