CR Leaders Corner: Lucy P. Marcus

When Stephen Davis of Yale University’s Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance presented a “Rising Star of Corporate Governance” award to Lucy P. Marcus last June, he called her the “charismatic Anglo-US head of Marcus Venture Consulting, which works with venture capital and private equity funds, institutions and corporations.”  Marcus represents a new breed of standard-bearers, advancing a 21^st century version of virtue politics where governance doesn’t simply broker competing interests, but rather transcends them.  A reflective practitioner, Marcus takes her director role seriously, linking ethics and civic accountability to commercial enterprise.  She also is non-executive chair of the Mobius Life Sciences Fund and non-executive director and chair of the board audit committee of BioCity Nottingham.

Lucy Marcus speaks regularly on board dynamism and director obligation, and her writings  appear in the Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and CSRWire.  In February, The Independent ranked Lucy as 43rd in their 100 Most Powerful Britons on Twitter.  A Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School focusing on Leadership and Innovation, Marcus recently was named to the shortlist of the 2011 Thinkers 50, a biennial ranking of the world’s most influential living management thinkers (final announcements will be made in November).

As one Millstein Center nominator wrote, Marcus is "a breath of fresh air, introducing fresh perspectives on leadership and accountability within a global context."  Said another: "Lucy's experience, combined with her writing talents and vision, have the potential to make her a recognized name in the field of corporate governance throughout the world for years to come."

AccountAbility Research Fellows Marcy Murninghan and Bill Baue caught up with her the other day, and asked what it means to be a director these days in an environment filled with change, uncertainty, and rising expectations.

Read the full interview here.