Corporate Duties: learning the ropes

It has recently become apparent to me that CEO's have a very specific role within their corporate bodies. I have never been to any kind of corporate training seminar with a major company, so much of what I am learning now is through a process of observation, trial, and probably error. It has always been obvious that in order to be a CEO you must posses excellent leadership skills, great confidence, management know how, mad PR skills, and the overall general drive to keep the corporate body moving forward (whether is be by meeting goals, or profits, etc.). But then there's the other stuff...technical business matters that really take years of experience to know. For example, should (can?) MEDP go public or stay private? Get a general council and what firm? What are the legal implications for an international NGO operating commercially and non-commercially in over 12 different sovereign states annually? These problem areas and others are a bit annoying but the key thus far has really been to take my time in considering all options and to really try to remain true to MEDP's constitution and overall goals.

MEDP is not yet a publicly traded company and I'm not sure that it ever will be due to its semi not-for-profit nature. The bottom line is, I would be able to guarantee the kind of growth requirements investors depend on but I don't think that it can be legal because much of our commercial earnings are fed back into our not-for-profit projects like strengthening democracy on the community level or the New Sophist's Society (see med-p.org for further details) and such probably can't be quantified as 'earnings'. Another problem with going public is that the constitution of the company can be compromised in the effort to meet investor satisfaction.

I've been sorting through these problems and trying to read up on them (fyi, corporate magazine subscriptions are choice) for the past few weeks but they haven't been stressing me. I really feel good about that fact and can enjoy my time with my loved ones and continue following up my social interests without always lingering on these problems. Case and point: went to Picasso's personal collection exhibit today in Brisbane and completely forgot about the benefits of going public, haha.

- Jean-Paul