Accounting and law associate professor interviewed on corporate news podcast

A University of North Georgia (UNG) associate professor of accounting and law was interviewed on The Deal's "Activist Investing Today" podcast Jan. 18 about public company board members sitting on five or more boards and how that could affect their performance in these roles.

Kurt Schulzke addressed this practice, known as "over-boarding," and his finding that directors of some strong-performing companies such as Starbucks, Apple, and Johnson & Johnson serve on relatively fewer boards than the overall population.

He also addressed some of the challenges boards face in recruiting women as directors, because female directors (about 20 percent of the total) may be "over-boarded" in the sense that they tend to serve on more boards than their male counterparts do.

Schulzke analyzed recent BoardEx data from roughly 1,500 S&P index companies before discussing the figures with Ron Orol on the podcast. He wonders if directors are getting stretched too thin by being on five, 10 or 15 boards.

"Can anybody actually have enough time and attention to be a director for that many boards?" said Schulzke, who is also director of Kennesaw State University's Corporate Governance Center.

The Deal is a New York City-based news and information portal focusing on corporate governance and deal-making.

Schulzke also was interviewed recently for a WalletHub article about HSBC credit cards.