Dilemmas facing the Supervisory Board
Dilemma
Balance between supervisory role, advisory role and role as
employer
Owing to increased legislation and regulation, the Supervisory
Board is devoting ever more time to oversight activities. As a
result, its statutory duty 'to supervise the policies pursued by
the Executive Board and the general course of affairs at
Rabobank Nederland and its affiliated institutions' is
increasingly at the forefront. That also represents one of the
dilemmas facing the Supervisory Board. How can a better
balance be achieved between its supervisory role, its advisory
role and its role as an employer if the supervisory role
continually claims more time and effort? The Supervisory
Board's advisory role and its role as an employer are after all at
least as important for the continuity of the enterprise. A multi-
day off-site meeting with the Executive Board, such as that held
at the end of October 2014, gave the Supervisory Board an
opportunity to reflect extensively with the Executive Board on
the future of Rabobank and its strategy. In its regular meetings,
the Supervisory Board also wants to focus to a greater extent on
topics such as commerce, innovation and customer needs.
The way in which the Supervisory Board also wishes to focus
more clearly on the role as employer is described elsewhere in
this chapter. Finding an appropriate balance between the three
roles, while keeping those roles appropriately separate and
maintaining its effectiveness, remains an ongoing priority for
the Supervisory Board.
Gender diversity
A second dilemma that was considered during the off-site
meeting at the end of October 2014 was diversity.
The Supervisory Board places great importance on gender
diversity and did its utmost to put this into practice in
appointments on the Supervisory Board and Executive Board in
2014. This did not lead to appointments of female candidates in
2014. Nonetheless, the Supervisory Board will continue to
endeavour to appoint more female members in the future.
This topic will continue to be high on the agenda during future
meetings of the Supervisory Board in 2015.
Off-site meetings
The Supervisory Board held two off-site meetings in 2014. The first of these was devoted to
discussing the evaluation of the Supervisory Board's performance in 2013. A two-day joint
off-site meeting with the Executive Board focused on matters such as strategy and cooperative
governance. In addition, the performance of the Supervisory Board, the performance of the
Executive Board in its new composition, as well as relations between the Executive Board and
the Supervisory Board were also discussed at length.
Sessions for continuing professional education and other training initiatives
The members of the Supervisory Board met five times in 2014 for sessions for continuing
professional education. The first session concerned talent management and management
development. Whereas the basic principle is that the Executive Board takes the lead in
systematically following, evaluating and developing talent at the bank, the Supervisory Board
wishes, on the basis of its role as employer, to more pro-actively form an impression of the
127 Report of the Supervisory Board of Rabobank Nederland
