Should an IRO be on the board?

The traditional IRO's role is to communicate the company's activities to its shareholders. In other words, a one way communication.


If the IRO's role was to establish what the shareholders want against the criteria of value, benefit, growth and risk, and help the company optimise its corporate KPOs to achieve those shareholder metrics, then the IRO's position on the board would be of benefit to both shareholder and corporation - and would represent a valuable two-way communication.

My experience with IROs is that many believe that "they know all that needs to be known about their shareholders" therefore establishing shareholder metrics is a waste of time. IROs with such a view would only confirm the current criticisms against existing boards - that they ignore real shareholder objectives and substitute them for their subjective assessment of what they want to deliver to their shareholders.

The other dimension of all of this is that the board should already be aware of its shareholder metrics - which as a rule, they are not