Profiles, say on pay and what matters most

Profiles for Women on Boards

What profiles might be best when populating a board game?

1. The characters should be realistic.
2. Therefore, each character in the game is "flawed' . To overcome the hazards in career progression, she will need to solicit the assistance of other participants. 
3. The characters will interact, either as competitors or as cooperators.
4. Each character will have one unique element in her make up. 
5. Some characters may know each other either as school mates, neighbours.
6. Choices a player makes during the game may have an impact on other players.
7. While the player may make a choice about how to proceed during the game, the choice may also be imposed at random during the game.

There are 4-6 players in a game which lasts up to 2 hours. The winner becomes the Chairman of the Board of a corporation. Players move through life events and career paths. Participants choose from a deck of cards who their character will be. There will be 18 cards to choose from.

1. Sarah is the daughter of upper middle class parents in Calgary. She has 2 sisters. All 3 went to a private girls school. All 3 graduated with an undergraduate degree from a top tier Canadian university. Sarah is the smartest of the 3 and went on to law school. Her area of expertise is in corporate social responsibility and environmental law. However, Sarah has never shown any interest in community affairs and has devoted herself exclusively to the law. She speaks only English. She is 32
2. Jill is the only child of wealthy parents from Halifax. She went to a local university, took an Arts degree majoring in economic history. She has been active in university politics serving 3 years in an elected position as VP of Student Affairs. She has also been active with the local NDP and volunteered at the local food bank and soup kitchen. She is 26
3. Claire is the daughter of a single mother with a limited education who has struggled to provide for Claire and her 2 younger bothers in the east end of Montreal. Life was challenging as the only Anglophone family in a large French Canadian working class neighbourhood. None the less, the blended in well, learning French fluently, going to a francophone school. She took mechanical engineering at the University of Montreal. Jill held down 2 part time jobs to pay her way and developed, along the way admirers and sponsors as she sought out her first jobs. She is 24.
4. Giselle is the daughter of  well connected parents, active in central Canadian politics, both lawyers working for big pharma in Ottawa. She speaks 3 languages including French, English and German. none the less, she went to public schools, worked summers in a variety of positions including: a paper mill, a retail outlet, as a political intern for a local MP, and on a farm. She secured all these positions despite her parent's best efforts to undermine her desire to explore the diversity of Canada's workforce. She graduated from an Ottawa university with a degree in media and computer science at the age of 22
5. Blaire had a quiet upbringing in western Canada on a ranch, with her sister and 3 brothers. She is very athletic, enjoys horseback riding and the great out doors. She learned how to fix farm equipment, re-build cars and ride horses, competitively. She went to a western Canadian university and graduated with degrees in business admin and agricultural science. She found time to excel in the local 4H club and the junior board of trade. At 25, she is anxious to get back to the ranch but to also represent her local community in provincial politics. 
6. Hillary comes from Vancouver, the only daughter of a doting father. Her mother died of cancer when she was 15. Her academic career was in remarkable except when her mother died. She struggled at school for several years and at 20 entered university in a science program. She has since excelled as a scientist , earning her PhD in genetics at the age of 32.
7. Carole, a Metis from Winnipeg, did well in school, volunteered with the local Boys and Girls Club and was appointed as a youth board member to that organization when she was 18. At the same time, she enrolled in a BBA course at the local university, with a goal to enter manufacturing and take over the family junior mining business with her brother, a geologist. At 22, she now Chairs the Club's Nominating Committee. Carole speaks French, English, Cree, Ojibway. 
8. Crystal is a widow with 3 children, working as a supervisor in an insurance brokerage in Brantford. Her husband, a police officer , was killed in the line of duty. She is currently working to complete a diploma in business admin (focus insurance) in the evenings at the local community college. This will supplement her other diploma in media from another community college. Despite her busy schedule, she is interested in local politics and has helped her friend, Bea, to run for office as a city councillor. 
9. Bea is a friend of Crystal. She is unmarried, a relatively successful real estate agent and broker and a Brantford city councillor. Bea is active in provincial politics , as well and has ambitions to run for MPP.  Bea has been active in the community in the local Lions Club, as  Rotarian and on the Board of the YMCA, serving as its Chairman during its building project. 
10. Monique is the mother of 2 boys, a supervisor in the purchasing department of a large building company and whose husband works for the same company but in a different division in Thunder Bay. She has a community college diploma in materials management, volunteers locally with the Franco Ontarian Centre, and with the local Liberal Party of Canada. Now that the boys have grown, she is interested in running in the next provincial election. 

8 more characters will be presented tomorrow for comment. The nature of the characters will, it seems , dictate what the game will look like. For example, an "early career phase" for the game will mean different things for different players..although I suspect the hazards each player faces will be universal across life stages and preparedness. 

What matters most....for open data

There is a good show on our local Rogers cable station (10, if you want to know). It is entitled "What Matters Most". (go to @SaintJohnCase to follow the host of the show) I have been watching this show for about the last 4 years. It is produced on a shoe string, as are most community cable shows. But it is very interesting and ought to be mandatory viewing for those who are trying to design Saint John's open data portal.

The premise of the show is to boost Saint John by focusing on interesting people, events, businesses and advocacy issues. The people interviewed are as varied as the city itself from the Board Chair of the local volunteer bureau, which is valiantly tying to operate on line and with out financing to 2 international sculptors showing their work about the effect of landmines on humans to the owner of the local (very good) junior hockey team. In between there have been interviews with volunteers from the women's shelter, the Chamber of Commerce and buy local agricultural produce advocates. 

Its pretty much what one expect, if that was all that one was looking for. 

Look deeper. 
Look deeper especially if you are interested in open data for the city. The show asks a series of deeper questions about the nature of this city. 

• How do you like the City where you live and , perhaps, work?
• Is it somewhere you really want to be?
• Does it fill you with inspiration... or stress, to get out?
• Does Saint John allow you to be the person you want to be? Does it do the same things for your family and friends?
• Would you recommend Saint John to others?

Open Data development ought to help you, a citizen of this city, answer these questions. While "What Matters Most" provides anecdotal information, the Open data portal ought to provide concrete data that you can cite (or send) to family, friends, co-workers and businesses looking to re-locate to someplace where the water is clean, the air is clean and a SWAT team is not going to shoot you in your bed. 

But the show also provides an anecdotal baseline which you may use to compare Saint John to other communities.

• Have you thought of moving?
• What are the top 3 places and how do these compare to Saint John?
• What do they offer that Saint John might not?
• How would your life be different there?

An Open Data portal ought to help you/us compare and therefore ought to present comparable data to other locales in Canada. 

• What might your career and income prospects be elsewhere and how might this compare to here? 
• If you are single, how might your dating life change, elsewhere? 
• If you are mid life with young children, what comparators are you looking at?
• If you are retired? In other words, how does your life circumstances here measure up to elsewhere? 

These aren't the only questions an Open Data portal might strive to address, but it is a start and it is directed...unlike what we have now, which is so much mud thrown at the wall. 

NBPSPP, disclosure and compensation

In yesterday's blog, disclosure of information by the board to the retirees was presented. At the 2017 annual meeting, the 2016 annual report was presented (not a typ"o"..so figure it out). In that report the Board reported that:

• the Terms of Reference of the Board , Audit and Nominating/Governance Committees had been revised. However, not included in the report was what those changes are.
• a Code of Conduct and Ethics was presented. However, again the limits of those codes were not disclosed. 
• a Disclosure Policy was developed. Again, no information.
• a Board orientation and education policy was developed. While there was a report that there had been board education program, there was no disclosure of what the orientation might look like or what educational topics were presented. Linking these to the strategic plan , if there is one, together with the self assessment skills matrix (presented later in the report) would have been helpful.
• Guidelines for the Nomination of Trustees was developed. However, again, there were no details.
• there was now a Communications Policy. As noted yesterday , this is important especially since the Plan will have a web site in 2018. 

Say on Pay is typically, at least in this country an important topic is all annual meetings , and since 2009. It is:

1. a core component of stakeholder engagement;
2. is linked to the Plan's  objectives and strategy and incentivizes management;
3. presented consistent with the disclosure of performance targets and serves to explain to retirees and the Board how compensation is linked to performance;
4. includes reporting on an employment contract, which in turn is linked to a compensation framework. 

It is important to have an independent Compensation Committee. Board members are encouraged to develop an independent point of view about compensation. To assist with developing an independent view, compensation consultants may be hired to advise the board members and the committee about standards consistent with industry norms. Finally, it is important that retirees be fully informed about all facets of the compensation regimen. 

For NBPSPP, the admin costs of the plan are .194% of the total assets...or $13.6m. performance for the plan in 2016 was 6.58%.

Retirees were assured that this fee was lower than was typically paid to other professional investors. 

So, if we are to go back to the standards of disclosure expected by CCGG questions we would need to have answered include:

1. How does pay equate to expected performance?
2. What are the admin costs of other Canadian public sector plans?
3. What are the terms of the contract with Vestcorp?
4. Is the performance in keeping with anticipated returns?

Just a few questions , of course. But they can be troubling without satisfactory answers.