The Board Chair as Architect of Conversations
The chair isn’t exercised. It’s designed. The effective chair isn’t the one who talks most, but the one who builds the space where others can disagree without breaking.
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Professor · Author · Advisor
The invisible architectures of the boardroom.
I have studied corporate governance for three decades. Every Tuesday and Thursday I send Better Boards, Better Value: a provocative idea for your next board meeting.
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ESE Business School
Universidad de los Andes
MIT Sloan Review
Harvard
Stanford
IESE
Edward Elgar Publishing
Columnist in Diario Financiero, La República (Colombia) and La Tercera · 4 million weekly reads on LinkedIn
Boards don’t fail for lack of talent. They fail because the space where they deliberate is poorly designed.
Directors today are more capable than they were twenty years ago. And yet the big mistakes keep happening in the same rooms. The reason isn’t talent — it’s the invisible architectures that coexist in every boardroom: the architecture of real power, of the information that arrives and the information that gets filtered, of how a board deliberates and how it anesthetizes dissent.
My work, for almost thirty years, has been learning to read them — and, when needed, helping to redesign them.
Ideas
Three essays to start.
The Charade of Professional Governance: When the Board Is Just Theater
The family protocol signed, the independent directors appointed, the meetings scheduled. And still the family decides everything as before, over Sunday lunch.
Read →Artificial Intelligence and the Board Agenda: 3 Keys
AI isn’t an item on the agenda. It’s a redesign of the director’s work. What changes, what doesn’t, and what few boards are seeing.
Read →Work with me
Three paths. The same thesis.
Boards
Substantive board evaluation, chair support, AI in the boardroom, succession and board renewal. 6–8 engagements a year.
See details →Family Businesses
Founder-CEO succession, family governance, family office governance, prevention of shareholder conflict. 4–6 engagements a year.
See details →Keynotes & Workshops
Six themes. Four formats. Spanish and English. For conferences, strategy retreats and executive programs.
See details →
Founding project
Directors’ Circle
Brings together sitting directors from across the region to discuss, off the record, the real problems they face in their boardrooms.
Empresas CMPC·
Empresas Juan Yarur·
Bain & Company·
Egon Zehnder·
PwC
Published books
Five books on corporate governance and boards.
Three decades of research and observation distilled into five volumes — four in Spanish with ESE Business School and one recent title in English.
- Sustainable Corporate Governance
- Directorios en Acción
- Directorio y Gobierno Corporativo (2nd edition)
- Gobierno de la Empresa y Autorregulación
- Directorio y Gobierno Corporativo (1st edition)
Sustainable Corporate Governance · 2025 · the fifth book, in English
Forthcoming book · In English · 2027
Becoming a Corporate Director
Your Passage into a New Identity
My first book in English. An editorial guide for those preparing for their first listed-company board: how you cross the frontier from executive to director without losing identity or effectiveness. Thirty years of observation condensed into twelve chapters.
Notification list
I’ll let you know when the book is available. Those who sign up today will receive the first chapter as a PDF.
In the press
Regular columnist in three countries, plus LinkedIn.
Diario Financiero
Monthly column on corporate governance in Chile
La República
Monthly column from Colombia · 11 pieces published
La Tercera
Monthly column on scandals and corporate reform
LinkedIn
Better Boards, Better Value · Tuesdays & Thursdays · 4M reads/week