Connecting the Dots that Connect Board Members
Although the recent news flow has been fast and furious, the announcement yesterday that the Board of Dow Jones will assume negotiations that will likely result in the the sale of the company to News Corp is notable. With the Bancroft family free to spend their summer sailing of Newport, the board can now roll up their sleeves and perform their fiduciary responsibility.
The process could be expedited by the fact that these folks that serve on these respective boards are on a first name basis with each other. In fact several members from each board serve in a similar manner on the boards of American Express, Ford Motor and HP, among others.
A legible version of the chart can be called up below, where you can see that Dow Jones board members Harvey Golub, Frank Newman and Vernon Jordan are well acquainted with Peter Chernin and Hamish Maxwell of News Corporation.
Does this guarantee a deal? No, in a word. GE and Pearson also share connections to Dow Jones through common relationships on hospital and museum boards, in addition to the requisite corporate boards. And for now that deal looks dead and buried.
There might be Six Degrees of Separation on Main Street, but in the world of clubby boards, the distance can be much less.
Like the width of a table.
Links below are best viewed in internet explorer not firefox!
Boards of News Corp and Dow Jones are Deeply Routed
NewsVisual
GE and Pearson Deeply Tied to Dow Jones
NewsVisual
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