You’ve seen how we’re being controlled by 10 mega companies, which produce almost everything we buy or eat. From Switzerland-based Nestle to Amerian-based Proctor & Gamble, their products are all over the place and there is at least one product in your house produces by them.

But do you know that the CEOs of some mega companies also controls or influence the business direction of another company? Organizations, whether for-profit, or not-for-profit, usually have a Board of Directors. You can think of this Board as a network that belongs to the organization.

 

Well, if you think the board members of an organization are only confined to that particularly company, you’re wrong. Directors can be a member of any other companies, sometimes with business not related to the one they represent in the first place. In fact, directors are not limited to the number of Boards they can be members of but time, energy and invitation.

For example, the CEO of Disney is on the board of Apple, whose CEO is on the board of Nike, which has a board member on Disney. As we go along with other Dow Jones Top-30 companies, the result of interlocking boards of directors is one huge spider’s web connecting some of these biggest companies in the U.S.

 

Kenneth Chenault is the sitting CEO and chairman of American Express, and also sits on the boards of IBM and Procter & Gamble. Ronald Williams who used to run Aetna, sits on the boards of Boeing, Johnson and Johnson, and American Express. As far as Dow Jones Top-30 companies are concerned, there are at least 63 executives who sit on two boards.

Above illustrates how well connected the 30 mega publicly owned companies which formed the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) in the United States is. Only three companies – The Home Depot, Verizon, and UnitedHealthcare – had no board member overlap with other DJIA constituents.

 

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August 2nd, 2015 by financetwitter

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