Non-execs need the right skills for effective integrated reporting

Integrated reporting is gaining in popularity, but it needs the right skills among non-executives if their credibility is to be enforced, writes Prof. Carol Adams, professor of accounting at Durham University.

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It is a clear expectation that board members are financially literate and any board using a skills matrix will encapsulate this in some way. But what about an understanding of value beyond profit? Or of the broader risks and opportunities that lead to, or threaten, value creation?
Integrated reports are designed to convey to investors and other readers information about the short, medium and, most importantly, the long-term value created by an organisation and the process by which that is achieved. Value is much more broadly defined than profit, or financial gain, recognising that an increasingly smaller part of a company’s value can be me
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