Mark Goyder is the Founder Director Tomorrow’s Company, the business-led think and do tank, and co-author of the Family Business Stewardship report. In this article, first printed in the Raconteur supplement of The Times and in association with the Institute for Family Business, Mark discusses the role of stewardship as well as setting out the four major principles that underpin family business stewardship.

In 2008 Tomorrows Company published “Tomorrow’s Owners – stewardship of Tomorrow’s Company”. This was a review of the principles of good ownership from private equity and family business to institutional investment in listed companies. The report concluded that shareholders had four roles – being a member, a provider of finance, a trader of shares and a steward, but that in listed companies it was this fourth role that was being neglected. The publication of this report coincided with the failure of the banks in October 2008. Sir David Walker picked up the theme of stewardship in his 2009 report for the UK government on the governance of banks and other financial institutions. Here we set out Tomorrow’s Company’s definition of stewardship and the four principles that make up effective stewardship.