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Chairman |
The chairman is the highest office of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office is typically elected or appointed by the members of the group. The chairman presides over meetings of the assembled group and conducts its business in an orderly fashion.1 When the group is not in session, the chairman's duties often including acting as its head, its representative to the outside world and its spokesperson.
A vice chairman is sometimes chosen to be subordinate to and to serve in the absence of the chairman.2 In the absence of the chairman and vice chairman, groups sometimes elect a chairman pro tem to fill the role for a single meeting.1
Chairman has its origins in 10th century Kingdom of England, when the king or his spokesman sat alone in a chair before the group, who sat on benches. Manus is Latin for "hand," so the chairman is one who sits in the chair and handles the meeting.3 The term has nothing to do with gender, which is designated by addressing the official as “Mister Chairman” or “Madam Chairman.”4 In spite of this, chairwoman and chairperson are sometimes used in place of chairman. Chair is used to avoid the awkwardness and perceived sexism of the other terms.56 The National Association of Parliamentarians does not approve using "chairperson."4
Other terms sometimes used for the office and its holder include presiding officer, president, moderator, chair, and convener.789 The chairman of a parliamentary chamber is often called the speaker.1011
Chair also refers to the place from which the holder of the office presides, whether on a chair, at a lectern, or elsewhere. During meetings, the person presiding is said to be “in the chair”. He or she is also referred to as “the chair.” Parliamentary procedure requires that members address the “chair” rather than the “chairman,” or by using a person's name. This is one of many customs aimed at maintaining the presiding officer's impartiality and insuring an objective and impersonal approach.1
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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008) |
A chair is selected by a company's board to lead the board of directors, preside over meetings, and lead the board to consensus from the disparate points of view of its members. The chair is the presiding director over the other directors on the board and is expected to be fair, a good listener, and a good communicator. Directors have a high level of fiduciary responsibility for overseeing the operation of a corporation. The term president is often used interchangeably with chair, especially in the United States. The CEO is the head of the management committee and usually reports to the board, which is headed by the chair.
In public companies, the role of the chairman of the board is distinct from that of the company's CEO or managing director. This point has more recently been brought into focus after corporate governance shortcomings were observed in companies where the two roles are combined. It is believed that the separation of functions within the board of directors or in the structure of the supervisory board and management board would facilitate control over the workings of the company and increase the accountability of the CEO or chair of the management board. In an attempt to inject transparency into the relationship between executive management and the board of directors as well as between management and the market or shareholders, the UK Cadbury Report was published in 1992. Its recommendations have been adopted to a greater or lesser extent by some countries within the European Union and the United States, as well as by the World Bank..
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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008) |
In the case of companies and similarly-organized bodies, there are generally two types of Chair: Non-executive and Executive.
Non-executive Chair of Board:
Executive Chair of Board:
The chairman often sets the style of leadership of the board which in turn filters down through the organization.
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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008) |
Chairs at academic institutions refer to the position, rather than the individual, and are often named after the person who donated the money to support the position. Professors appointed to such a chair often receive guaranteed funding (often endowed). Colleges and universities, especially older and well-financed ones, may have many such chairs.
Some of the best known chairs have been held by a succession of well-known scholars; the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge has been held by Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage, Paul Dirac, and Stephen Hawking, while the Quain Chair of Jurisprudence has been held by John Austin, H. L. A. Hart, and Ronald Dworkin.
The word chair is also used in an American universities to refer to the head of an academic department, particularly if the policies of a university are such that the chair is elected directly, or appointed with the recommendation of, the department's faculty. Chairs are simultaneously administrators and faculty members; chairs at one major American university system were estimated to spend 61 to 80 percent of their time on administrative duties, as opposed to their research and teaching.12
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