See also Chairperson.

For other uses of the term chair, please see chair (disambiguation).

A Chairman is the presiding officer of a meeting, organization, committee, or other deliberative body.

The use of chair (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) as a verb as in "to chair meeting" to describe being in charge of a meeting, dates from as early as 1658.

Since the late 1970s, activists on the political left started championing the use of the allegedly gender-neutral term Chairperson, or simply Chair, to avoid what they perceive as "sexist" assumptions with use of the term Chairman. By the same token, the title of Chairwoman may sometimes be used if the incumbent is female.

Today, the politically correct usage appears to be limited predominantly to some British city and district councils, whereas the use of the term Chairman remains widespread: the overwhelming majority of UK's 100 top listed (FTSE 100) companies have "Chairmen".

Types

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In the case of companies and similarly-organised bodies, there are there are generally two types of Chairmen: non-executive and executive.

A non-executive Chairman will sit on and chair the main board of a company and be a part-time officer who usually provides support and advice to a Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This position usually entails fulfilling a similar function on a number of ancillary board committees, as well as being a political figurehead of the Company.

An executive Chairman is a full-time position who typically leads the board and will also take a hands-on role in the company's day to day management. ryrth h5 67j 7j 7j

Corporate governance

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A Chairman is selected by a company’s board to lead it, chair meetings and lead a final consensus from a disparate point of view among its members. The Chairman is the presiding Director over the other Directors on the board and must be fair, a good listener, and a good communicator. Directors have a high level of fiduciary responsibility of overseeing the operation of a corporation.

Traditionally, the Chairman also holds the title of CEO and combined, these are the highest ranking positions in a corporation. The term President is often used interchangeably with Chairman, although this use is more prevalent in the United States. The CEO is the head of the Management Committee, and usually reports to the board, which is headed by the Chairman.

As far as the boards of public companies are concerned, the role of the chairman of the board as distinct from that of the company's CEO or managing director has more recently been brought into focus, stemming from alleged corporate governance shortcomings observed in companies where the two roles are combined. A pivotal document regarding effective governance is the Cadbury Report, the recommendations of which have been adopted to greater or lesser extent by the European Union, the United States, the World Bank, and others.

Other uses

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• In the People's Republic of China, the title of "Chairman" is often used interchangeably with that of "President" (e.g., President Hu Jintao, Chairman Mao Zedong).
• The Chairman (董事長樂團) is a Taiwan-based rock group formed in 1997.

Management occupations | Parliamentary procedure

Vorsitzender | Voorzitter | 会長 | Ordfører | Ordförande