What is Chair?
Chair is the person who manages a board of directors and oversees the course of the institution.
Definition and Word Origin
"Chair" means chair in English. It comes from the chair on which the person managing the meeting sits, and over time it became the name of the office. It is a neutral title that does not specify gender. The Chair oversees the functioning of the board of directors and long-term strategy, not the daily affairs of the company.
How to Know and Use in Daily Life?
Companies: The chairman who conducts the board meetings.
Associations: The person who carries out the general assembly and council processes.
Universities: Head of department or department.
Technical Depth and Architecture
Duties of the President:
Agenda: Determining meeting topics and managing time.
Decision order: To manage the voting and ensure that the minority opinion is recorded.
CEO audit: Monitoring the general manager's performance on behalf of the board.
Stakeholder bridge: Communication between the investor and the regulator and the board.
Board composition: New member election and committee distribution.
In a healthy structure, the president and CEO are separate people. Combining them in the same person is seen as a weakening of control and corporate governance principles do not recommend this.
Frequently Mixed Things
Can be confused with CEO. The CEO manages the company, and the chairman manages the board that manages the company. One is in charge of execution and the other is in charge of auditing.
Use in Different Disciplines
Court: The judge presiding over the hearing.
Council: The vice president chairs the session.
Panel: The moderator giving the floor to the speakers.
Questions and answers
Does Chair manage the daily affairs of the company?
Usually no. Daily work is in the hands of the CEO and his team. The Chair deals with the functioning of the board and strategic oversight.
Can the Chair and the CEO be the same person?
It is legally possible in some countries, but corporate governance principles recommend separation. Merger weakens control.
How to choose a chair?
They are usually elected by the board from among the board members. Term of office is written in the articles of association.
Is a chair required in a small company?
If there is a board of directors, there is also a chairman. In small companies with a single partner, this role is usually held by the partner and is not filled separately.
Related terms
This explanation was written in plain language for TreScout with AI and machine-translated from the Turkish original · the Turkish version prevails. If something looks wrong or missing, write to hello@trescout.com. Read in Turkish →