CGF Research Institute (Pty) Ltd provides a wide range of Corporate Governance, Company Secretarial, Compliance, Board Evaluation, Training and Educational Services at guaranteed competitive rates.

1.     Company Secretarial Services

CGF provides the knowledge, expertise and skill to professionally assist companies with Company Secretarial services, providing them a holistic approach to governance, risk and compliance.

When may the need arise to use external Company Secretarial services?

Companies may find themselves in situations when they require outside assistance to assist them in the following circumstances, which include:

·         drafting of agendas, attendance at meetings and drafting minutes;

·         ensuring high quality meeting packs, within a standardised formatting;

·         ensuring that meetings are run to meet all legal requirements;

·         supporting and advising the Board / Committee Chairperson;

·         assisting with an AGM and general meeting notices;

·         supporting the Chairperson’s preparation (e.g. Chairperson’s notes and agenda etc.) attendance at meeting, liaison with scrutineers and transfer secretaries;

·         shareholder liaison;

·         coaching or mentoring of company secretarial staff;

·         assisting the company secretariat with key policies and constitutional documents (e.g. Memorandum of Incorporation), in their design, mapping, bench-marking, preparation and delivery; and

·         assisting the company to map their regulatory universe to meet certain standards of compliance, as well as other secretarial legal requirements.

Such assistance may typically arise when the Company Secretary of the company needs to take a leave of absence and there is no back-up or support, such as for example; sudden departure, illness, extended business trips, long-leave and vacations, maternity and paternity leave, death and the like.

CGF is able to provide a full range of Company Secretarial services for your company on a temporary or semi-permanent basis. 

2.     Compliance

Through CGF’s direct and extended GRC services, we assist companies with the formulation and / or benchmarking of its key company policies, charters, Terms of Reference and Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI) documents. CGF and its consultants have an impressive set of skills in this arena, as well as many policy templates upon which the basis of such documents are initially built, or benchmarked. 

Importantly, CGF is able to work closely with the client’s custodian of its key policies, thereby ensuring that the company’s policies and other similar documentation are designed to suit the company’s environment, employees and stakeholders. It is imperative that the company’s key policies are aligned to the organisation’s governance framework, constitutional documents and strategy. Misalignment of a company’s key policies, or worse, conflict or duplication of such policies can have detrimental effects upon the company, its employees and other key stakeholders. 

3.     Board evaluation

Through CGF’s direct and extended GRC services, we provide companies with all forms of board evaluation, including individual director assessments, mentoring and training. CGF has an extensive list of clients who have made use of these services which are designed to ultimately improve the efficacy of the board, board committees and all the respective members. Board evaluation is critical for the sustainability of the company and to ensure that they meet the expectations of all the company’s stakeholders. In larger listed companies, it is expected that the results of such evaluations is communicated in the company’s Integrated Reporting.  

4.     Education and Training

CGF has earned a fine reputation for delivering world class private and public Corporate Governance Awareness Interventions attached to the topics of governance, risk and compliance, called Governance Beyond Boards®. These Interventions have been conducted throughout South Africa, Tanzania, Botswana and Namibia, and impart valuable information to the directors and other prescribed officers of varying types of organisations that assists in the induction and/or on-going learning requirements of senior and executive management.

5.     Board / Management coaching & mentoring services

Through CGF’s direct and extended GRC services, we offer companies coaching and mentoring services. Coaching executives is usually a ‘personal’ interaction between the organisation’s board members, executives and key managers; and who generally contact CGF directly in their personal capacities. In other instances, an organisation may have appointed new employees in these senior positions and will contact CGF to provide coaching and mentoring to ensure that these new employees meet a required level where they are able to assume their full roles and responsibilities in conforming with the relevant legislation, the King III Report and other relevant organisational policies, codes and guidelines. We also assist to facilitate the selection of the Chairperson and the directors to ensure there is a balance and diversity on the board.

Visit our website for more information about our services.