I’m still utterly amazed at large company fraud. Christo Wiese owns 23% of Steinhoff and was Chair, and didn’t know anything about it at Steinhoff.  Highlights to me that choosing the CEO is still one of the most important if not the most important job of a board.

“Normally when you’re in a business, and you’re responsible, you can see the problems coming, you’re aware of them,” Mr Wiese said. “This came like a bolt out of the blue.” “I can only say that cleverer people than this board have been duped before by people committing fraud,” he added. “To detect fraud in a company is an extremely difficult if not impossible task and it becomes more difficult when, as is alleged in this case, the CEO is directly involved.”

Jan 31, FT article here  and  Dec 2017, Bloomberg article here   

Also, highlights the problems the board has if it can't assess what management are showing them. In the light of the UK's Carillion failure, its board have been given a hard time too.