Management teams and their boards are juggling a wide array of concerns in the face of the coronavirus crisis — from the health of their workforces to volatile equity markets to shuttered debt markets. Furthermore, many economists and policy makers have slashed GDP forecasts and now portend a deep global recession. So, what should boards do in a moment of crisis such as this? Asking the right questions can help guide boards to deliver value to their companies during moments of high uncertainty. Roughly half of them should pertain to operations — basically, keeping the company’s lights on — and the other half should examine the financial state of the company.
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Some say that corporate boards only have value when companies are in crisis. If that is true, the 2020 global pandemic presents a moment for corporate boards to step up like no other.
