DARE TO BE DIFFERENT FOR THE SAKE OF TOMORROW

A Chairperson’s Clarion Call for Disciplined Governance, Real Time Oversight, and Fair and Performance  Driven Reward

By Professor Douglas Boateng, Chartered Director (UK IoD) | Chartered Engineer (UK) | Social Entrepreneur | Governance and Industrialisation Strategist

Hon. Julius Debrah, Chief of Staff at the Office of the President; distinguished colleagues; fellow custodians of our continent’s future; all protocols observed.

I am truly honoured to address this distinguished gathering of industry leaders and C suite executives. My purpose is simple and urgent: to invite us, as past and present chairpersons, to dare to be different. If our goal is to serve society for the common good over the long term, it cannot be business as usual.

Let us set aside comfort and listen with conscience. This is not a speech about titles. It is a conversation about trust, duty, and tomorrow. The seat of the chairperson is not furniture. It is a promise made to the people we meet today and to those we may never meet, especially the children who will inherit the outcomes of our decisions.

Across our continent, boards meet, talk, circulate thick board packs, and close with applause. Yet hospitals wait for beds, medicines, equipment, and spares. Schools wait for books, tables, and chairs. Major projects run late, bills and costs run over, and citizens suffer and lose faith. We cannot pretend that ritual is the same as responsibility. If the board is a compass, the chair must be true north. An African proverb teaches that the canoe does not travel if the paddlers pull in silence. Leadership begins when we move from ceremony to consequence.

STEWARDSHIP, RISK, AND REWARD

Allow me to be direct and respectful. In Africa, we too often undervalue stewardship. In many institutions, the chair and directors carry full fiduciary risk yet receive neither the resources nor the protection to match that risk. This is false economy and an obstacle to boldness in the boardroom.

When we starve governance, we feed waste.

When we discount the role, we invite quiet failure.

Chairs and directors must be paid well and fairly for the work, the risk, and the exposure. Not extravagantly, but credibly and openly, benchmarked to responsibility, results, and personal risk. If we want courage at the table, we must stop asking people to be brave at a discount.

Shareholders must pair fair pay with director and chair liability insurance so that ethical and courageous decisions are not a personal gamble. A shareholder cannot demand backbone while providing no armour.

Yes, serving state owned institutions is a national duty. But national duty does not mean compensation should be low or merely symbolic. The role carries real risk and accountability. We have seen presidents and senior officials publicly humiliated and, at times, imprisoned. If chairpersons do not read and question their board packs, they will be increasingly exposed. Tomorrow, or after the next election, it could be any of us who failed our fiduciary duty by not questioning the executive.

There is a saying: even the sea accepts rainwater. In the same way, a national supervisory servant who is perceived as wealthy must still receive competitive, transparent compensation for the role. Otherwise, the work attracts either the reckless, the self serving, or the distracted. If we want principled leadership, we must reward principled work.

We must also remove quiet distortions that corrode integrity. If chairs are fairly compensated, they must not look to per diems as substitute pay. Per diems should cover actual expenses, not become side income. When the base is fair, the extras can be modest, and trust grows.

For context, public disclosures and independent surveys suggest that non executive chairs of major listed companies in South Africa often receive total annual fees in the range of roughly 140,000 to 330,000 US dollars, depending on size, sector, and committee load. Chairs of large state owned entities vary more widely, with published fee ranges and meeting fees that can total 70,000 to over 180,000 US dollars a year, again depending on scope and exposure. By comparison, non executive chair fees for large companies in mature markets often stand around 300,000 to 600,000 pounds for a FTSE 100 chair, and 500,000 to 1,000,000 US dollars in total value for many S and P 500 non executive chairs when cash retainers and share options are combined. The point is not to copy numbers. The point is to match pay to responsibility, risk, and results so we attract and keep the calibre of leadership our institutions require.

OVERSIGHT IN REAL TIME

There is another habit we must change. Quarterly board meetings may suit stable systems. Our reality is different. Supply chains are fragile. Cash is tight. Compliance gaps appear quickly and unexpectedly. In developing markets, boards should meet monthly for focused, time bound sessions that track delivery, cash, compliance, people, and risk. This is not micromanagement. It is disciplined monitoring and holding the chief executive accountable in real time.

Hon. Chief of Staff and distinguished colleagues, delay increases losses and perpetuates wrongdoing. Early oversight saves money and protects reputation. As the proverb cautions, a stitch in time saves nine. In our context, a board in time saves millions.

Oversight must be timely, not ceremonial. Boards should insist on quarterly internal audit and risk reporting, and staged updates from external auditors through the year. A single annual report often arrives too late, explains too little, and rarely recovers what has been lost. Reacting after the fact is expensive. You spend again to chase what has bled away. Let us replace annual surprises with quarterly truth. The message to management and to the market will be clear: as chairs, we do not fear sunlight.

PROTECTING REPUTATION AND THE NATION’S BRAND

We must also protect reputation, capital, and national standing. Chairs and boards should discourage the washing of dirty linen in public until facts are established. It is our patriotic duty to protect Brand Ghana and, by extension, Brand Africa. Allegations shouted before verification do not stain only the individuals involved; they stain the institution and, in the eyes of investors and partners, the nation. An African proverb reminds us that the wind does not reveal the fault of the clay pot; it is the owner who drops it. When we allow half truths to become headlines, we drop the clay pot of credibility on our own feet.

The consequences are real. Partnership talks stall. Lenders price in uncertainty. The risk profile of the company and the country rises, and so do borrowing costs. Interest rates creep up because risk has been amplified in public without evidence to balance fear.

Let the facts speak first. Then let accountability follow swiftly and fairly.

DARING TO BE DIFFERENT

We must dare to be different in cadence: monthly meetings, not quarterly gatherings.

We must dare to be different in transparency: quarterly audit visibility, not annual retrospectives.

We must dare to be different in discipline: choose life cycle value over the cheapest sticker price. Low bid roads collapse with the first rains; the invoice returns with the storm and with heavy maintenance costs.

We must dare to be different in conscience: pay small suppliers on time so they can breathe, build capacity, and deliver. A nation cannot be strong if its local suppliers are starved by the very contracts that should feed them.

We must dare to be different in reporting genuine mistakes and exposing wrongdoing. Do not sensationalise ongoing investigations. Public accusations can harm the nation, damage your organisation, derail outcomes, and undermine performance. Verify first. Communicate responsibly.

CONTINUITY, SUCCESSION, AND MEMORY

Continuity must be designed, not hoped for. In too many institutions, outgoing and incoming chairs never meet. We lose memory and pay for that amnesia with repeated mistakes.

Moving forward, we must institutionalise formal face to face transition meetings between outgoing and incoming chairs, including a documented handover that covers strategy, risks, investigations, and stakeholder commitments. In many developing economies, outgoing chairs are appointed as honorary chairs to pass on wisdom and to guide incoming chairs.

Most importantly, appoint the chair for a fixed six year term with staggered terms across the board, and begin a formal succession plan in year four. Identify potential successors, set development steps, and ensure overlap and handover so the mission does not pause when the nameplate changes.

The chair seat will change. The duty will remain. Past and present boards are not enemies. We must learn from each other to ensure continuity, knowledge, and wisdom transfer. Politics must never divide us. We are one people. If the ship sinks, we all sink with it.

Culture is what leaders consistently reward and consistently refuse to excuse. As chairpersons, we should encourage public scoreboards that the board reviews monthly and summarises each quarter: on time and on budget delivery for major projects; customer or citizen service reliability; verified local value addition; ethical compliance; payment times to small firms; and tangible, life lifting initiatives in the communities where we operate.

What is measured in daylight tends to improve. Pride and pressure are powerful medicines when administered fairly.

PERSONAL DISCIPLINE AND MEETING EXCELLENCE

We must avoid groupthink.

We must read the board pack before attending the meeting; otherwise, recuse yourself.

We must lead by example by respecting time.

We must switch off our phones during meetings.

We should keep meetings to no more than three hours.

We must equip the board to think, not just to listen.

Board packs should arrive at least five working days before the meeting.

We must demand short, decision ready papers that include options, trade offs, and life cycle costs.

Mandate a standing risk and ethics dashboard that shows controls, conflicts, cyber and operational exposures, and red flags in real time. If information arrives late or unclear, send it back. The board’s time is for choices, not guessing.

Another proverb guides us: the one who fetches water learns where the well is deep. Boards must fetch the right information from the right wells.

A WORD TO APPOINTING AUTHORITIES, REGULATORS, AND OWNERS

If you want better outcomes, give chairs the tools to deliver.

Pay fairly.

Protect independence.

Publish the rules and keep them.

A chair who fears arbitrary removal cannot defend principle.

Enshrine due process for board leadership so that dissent in the public interest is not punished as disloyalty.

Please, separate strategy from politics. Strategy loves the long view. Politics loves the shortcut. The chair stands between them to defend tomorrow from the temptation of today.

THE NEXT GENERATION

To our young and aspiring boardroom professionals, your voice matters.

We should invite youth observers to selected board meetings so they can learn the rules of the boardroom.

Run shadow boards in universities and professional bodies that mirror real agendas and decisions. When young minds witness ethical leadership up close, shortcuts lose their shine. The future must sometimes be present when the future is being decided.

TWELVE PRACTICAL CHANGES WE CAN START NOW

1. Codify the chair’s mandate. Draw bright lines between oversight and operations. Make clear that the chair enforces accountability, protects the long term, and ensures the board hears uncomfortable facts.
2. Adopt monthly board meetings with a standard agenda and a real time dashboard.
3. Require quarterly internal audit reporting and staged external audit updates, not year end drama.
4. Publish a plain language quarterly scorecard for citizens and investors.
5. Require annual continuing professional development for every chairperson, linked to reappointment.
6. Stagger board terms so governance outlives election cycles.
7. Benchmark chair and director remuneration against responsibility and risk, with clear performance links.
8. Do not allow per diems to become shadow pay.
9. Independently review and adjust board fees and sitting allowances.
10. Insist on life cycle value in procurement. Do not buy the cheapest. Buy the best value over the life of the asset.
11. Pay small and medium suppliers on time. Late payment is silent theft.
12. Mandate chair to chair transitions and maintain a governance archive. Memory is a national asset.

Why push so hard for these changes?

Because every board decision writes a line in the life of a child who cannot vote and has no lobbyist.

Because waste is a thief of public trust.

Because integrity without capacity cannot deliver.

Because we cannot continue to chase losses after the fact when prevention is cheaper and more humane.

We can learn from examples at home and abroad. In South Africa, boards that embraced clear mandates and regular oversight helped steady institutions during turbulent times. Where monthly oversight took root, irregular spend fell and on time delivery improved. In the Gulf, sovereign fund boards pair competitive pay with strict rules and publish clear scorecards that investors can read. In Singapore, the Temasek model shows how transparent oversight and long term duty can grow national wealth and fund social goods. In the United States and Europe, many large company boards meet more often during stress and disclose material risks quarterly, not annually, because markets punish silence.

We also know the cost of the opposite. Where boards met rarely and asked gently, projects drifted, debts swelled, and public anger rose. Where annual reports were the only window, faults became scandals and corrections came late and costly. The proverb warns that the lizard which jumped from a high tree said it would praise itself if no one else would. Let our boards not rely on self praise. Let us earn praise through visible, verifiable delivery.

CONSCIENCE, INDUSTRIALISATION, AND ADVOCACY

On conscience management: the chair must keep the institution’s moral compass clean. Stewardship is more than compliance. It is the courage to say no to a profitable wrong and yes to a difficult right.

Socially responsible choices are not a luxury. They are risk management in plain clothes. When boards tie major awards to local value addition, skills transfer, and fair labour, the supply chain improves, the currency stabilises, and communities see that the economy is not a rumour but a partner in their lives and livelihoods.

On industrialisation: the chair can be the quiet architect of national progress. Procurement should favour life cycle value and domestic capability building. Major awards should include training, maintenance, and spares so hospitals function, roads last, and power plants run. A factory is born in the boardroom before it stands on the ground. Use that power with care.

On advocacy: many sectors benefit when boards engage policymakers openly and ethically to shape workable rules. The best examples disclose engagements, file submissions publicly, and keep records so citizens see that influence is not a back door but a front desk. When guardrails are clear, dialogue improves policy and reduces uncertainty. The chair must ensure that advocacy stays within ethics and within the law.

UNITY AND LEGACY

Past and present chairs are not rivals. They are runners in a relay. One passes the baton; the other sprints with respect. If the child washes his hands, he can eat with the elders, says an African proverb. Let the old and the new sit together at transition, wash hands together, and pass on wisdom. As we grow older as chairs, it is more important to think about tomorrow and to leave a legacy than to seek applause. Applause fades. Legacy stays.

Some will ask, can we afford this level of governance discipline? I ask in return, can we afford the cost of business as usual? The cost of weak oversight. The cost of late audits. The cost of overdue payments. The cost of collapsed roads. The cost of idle machines. The cost of public anger. Discipline is cheaper than failure. That is the quiet mathematics of stewardship.

IN CLOSING

Let me gather the points we must press home:

1. Fair, transparent pay and proper protection for chairs and directors are necessities, not luxuries.
2. Monthly board meetings enable real time accountability in developing markets.
3. Quarterly audit and risk reporting replace annual surprises with early correction.
4. Life cycle value beats low bid waste.
5. On time payment to small suppliers strengthens national delivery.
6. Formal chair to chair transitions preserve memory and prevent repeated mistakes.
7. Public scorecards build credibility and improve performance.
8. If chairs are fairly compensated, per diems must not become shadow pay.
9. Independence and due process protect conscience and sharpen courage.

Distinguished colleagues, we must dare to be different for the sake of tomorrow.

• We must dare to convene monthly.
• We must dare to demand quarterly truth.
• We must dare, as a collective, to insist on performance driven board fees.
• We must dare to publish a scoreboard the public can read.
• We must dare to say no when the cheapest choice will be the most expensive mistake.
• We must dare to hand our successor an institution stronger than the one we received.

Let this be our answer when history asks where the guardians were: we were here. We paid governance the respect it deserves. We met monthly. We insisted on quarterly truth. We protected those who chose integrity. We left the institution stronger than we found it.

And let this be our promise to the child not yet born: we will not spend their tomorrow to fund our comfort today. We will choose discipline over drama, light over heat, systems over slogans, and delivery over applause.

The inconvenient truth is that the future will judge us by what we did when we knew what was right. The hopeful truth is that we can begin today. May courage guide our chairs, may conscience guard our decisions, and may legacy honour our continent.

The Ghana and the Africa we desire live in the boardrooms we lead.

May the Almighty continue to bless Africa, and the place on the continent called Ghana.

Thank you for your attention.