ABSTRACT
When I last spoke with Scott McKay, CIO of $9 billion insurance provider Genworth Financial, he offered an analogy:
“In the boardroom, there are chairs around the table and chairs lining the walls. Every chair is occupied by an executive who is highly valued and highly compensated. But there is a clear difference between the people who sit at the table and the people who sit along the walls. The people at the table are making decisions about what the company will do. The people along the walls figure out how to deliver on those decisions. In the boardroom, there are the ‘what’ people and the ‘how’ people.”1
