Unilever 2014 Annual Report Download - page 5

In 2014 the Boards met physcally n January, March, May, July,
September and November and consdered mportant corporate
events and actons, such as
• developng and approval of the overall strategy
• oversght of the performance of the busness
• revew of rsks and nternal rsk management and
control systems
• authorsaton of maor transactons
• declaraton of dvdends
• convenng of shareholders’ meetngs
• nomnatons for Board appontments
• revew of Drectors’ remuneraton polcy
• revew of the functonng of the Boards and ther ommttees and
• revew of corporate responsblty and sustanablty,
n partcular the Unlever Sustanable Lvng Plan
ATTENDANCE
The followng table shows the attendance of Drectors at Board
meetngs n 2014 If Drectors are unable to attend a Board meetng
they have the opportunty beforehand to dscuss any agenda tems
wth the harman Attendance s expressed as the number of
meetngs attended out of the number elgble to be attended
Man Board
Mchael Treschow(a) 7/7
Kees Storm(b) 6/7
Paul Polman(c) 7/7
Jean-Marc Hut(c) 7/7
Laura ha 7/7
Louse Fresco 7/7
Ann Fudge 7/7
harles olden(d) 3/3
Byron rote 7/7
Mary Ma 7/7
Hxona Nyasulu 7/7
Sr Malcolm Rfknd 6/7
John Rshton 7/7
Feke Sbesma(e) 1/1
Paul Walsh 7/7
(a) harman
(b) Vce-harman/Senor Independent Drector
(c) Executve Drector
(d) Retred from the Boards on 14 May 2014
(e) Apponted to the Boards wth effect from 1 November 2014
NONEXEUTIVE DIRETOR MEETINS
The Non-Executve Drectors meet as a group, wthout the
Executve Drectors present, to consder specfc agenda tems
set by them, usually four or fve tmes a year In 2014 they met fve
tmes The harman, or n hs absence the Vce-harman/Senor
Independent Drector, chars such meetngs
BOARD EVALUATION
Each year the Boards formally assess ther own performance
wth the am of helpng to mprove the effectveness of both the
Boards and the ommttees and at least once every three years
an ndependent thrd party facltates the evaluaton The
evaluaton conssts of ndvdual ntervews wth the Drectors
by the harman and also, every three years, by the external
evaluator These ntervews complement our annual process of
completon by all Drectors of three full and confdental onlne
evaluaton questonnares on our Boards, EO and harman
The detaled Board questonnare nvtes comments on a number
of key areas ncludng Board responsblty, operatons,
effectveness, tranng and knowledge
As n 2011 Mr J de Leeuw, an ndependent external consultant,
facltated the 2014 Board evaluaton Mr J de Leeuw has no other
connecton wth the Unlever roup The harman’s Statement on
page 2 descrbes the key actons agreed by the Boards followng
that evaluaton
page 2 of the Strategic Report
In addton to the evaluaton of the Boards’ effectveness, each
year the harman conducts a process of evaluatng the
performance and contrbuton of each Drector whch ncludes
a one-to-one performance and feedback dscusson wth each
Drector The evaluaton of the performance of the harman s
led by the Vce-harman/Senor Independent Drector and the
harman leads the evaluaton of the EO, both usng bespoke
questonnares ommttees of the Boards evaluate themselves
annually under supervson of ther respectve harmen takng
nto account the vews of respectve ommttee members and
the Boards
APPOINTMENT
In seekng to ensure that NV and PL have the same Drectors,
the Artcles of Assocaton of NV and PL contan provsons
whch are desgned to ensure that both NV and PL shareholders
are presented wth the same canddates for electon as Drectors
Anyone beng elected as a Drector of NV must also be elected as
a Drector of PL and vce versa Therefore, f an ndvdual fals
to be elected to both companes he or she wll be unable to take
hs or her place on ether Board These provsons of the Artcles
cannot be changed wthout the permsson, n the case of NV,
of the holders of the NV specal ordnary shares and, n the case
of PL, of the holders of the PL deferred stock
The report of the Nomnatng and orporate overnance
ommttee (N) on pages 60 and 61 descrbes the work
of the N n Board appontments and recommendatons
for re-electon In addton, shareholders are able to nomnate
Drectors The procedure for shareholders to nomnate Drectors
can be found n the ‘Appontment procedure for NV & PL
Drectors’ document under ‘download lnks’ on our webste
To do so they must put a resoluton to both the NV and PL
AMs n lne wth local requrements Drectors are apponted
by shareholders by a smple maorty vote at each AM
wwwunlevercom/boardsofunlever
DIRETOR INDUTION AND TRAININ
All Drectors receve nducton on onng the Boards and the
harman ensures that ongong tranng s provded for Drectors
by way of ste vsts, presentatons and crculated updates at (and
between) Board and Board ommttee meetngs on, among other
thngs, Unlever’s busness, envronmental, socal and corporate
governance, regulatory developments and nvestor relatons
matters Detals of the tranng provded to the Drectors n 2014
can be found n the harman’s Statement on page 2
page 2 of the Strategic Report
INDEPENDENE AND ONFLITS
As the Non-Executve Drectors make up the ommttees of
the Boards, t s mportant that they can be consdered to be
ndependent Each year the Boards conduct a thorough revew
of the Non-Executve Drectors’, and ther related or connected
persons’, relevant relatonshps referencng the crtera set out
n ‘The overnance of Unlever’ whch s derved from the relevant
best practce gudelnes n the Netherlands, UK and US
42 Unilever Annual Report and Accounts 2014Governance
ORPORATE OVERNANE ONTINUED