Icarus, in my opinion bad move. Look at flying. You have a pilot who is in command and then I assume a check pilot who does not interfere. The roles of board member and CEO are very different and I would suggest that
VB would never have got into this mess if JB was not on the board. The board would have fired him years ago. The boards job is to watch the CEO and fire them if they screw up. You can’t do that easily with an MD.
P.S. Boards have to be able to have discussions that would make your hair stand on end. Look at AMP. Look at Rio Tinto.