From the author of The Humanized Leader, which sold more than 5,000 copies in its first ten months.
Board Games
Inside the African Boardroom
Everybody wants a seat at the table. Few understand what happens once the door closes. From the outside, a board appointment looks like recognition. A respected title. Your name in an annual report. Proof that you have arrived.
Inside the boardroom, the questions are difficult, the information is incomplete and personalities collide. One decision can strengthen an institution for decades or cost it an opportunity it may never recover. After more than thirty years on both sides of the boardroom table, Dr Martin Oduor-Otieno takes you inside the conversations, conflicts and decisions that shape organisations across Africa. This is not a governance manual. It is what governance looks like when real people, real power and real consequences enter the room.
A Bad Board Is Worse Than No Board at All
A good board can help an organisation enter new markets, survive a crisis and outlast its founders.
You will discover:
- 01 Why organisations need boards and when they may be better off without one.
- 02 How to choose directors for their contribution, not their reputation.
- 03 Why impressive CVs do not always produce effective board members.
- 04 How chairmen and CEOs can work together without competing for control.
- 05 What happens when politics, ego and difficult directors enter the room.
- 06 How boards should respond when an organisation faces a crisis.
- 07 Why some board evaluations reveal nothing.
- 08 What the future will demand from directors and the boards they serve.
Is This Book for You?
Board Games is for current and aspiring directors, chairmen, CEOs, founders, family businesses, governance professionals and anyone who wants to understand what a board seat truly demands. If you have ever asked, “How do I get onto a board?”, Martin begins with a more important question:
Here is the pull quote.
A Bad Board Is Worse Than No Board at All
A good board can help an organisation enter new markets, survive a crisis and outlast its founders. A bad board can delay the right decision, protect the wrong CEO and quietly undo years of good work. Martin has experienced both. In Board Games, he shares the decisions that worked, the opportunities that slipped away and the failures that still trouble him.
Ordering for Your Organisation?
Corporate and bulk orders are available for boards, executive teams, board retreats, governance programmes, family businesses, universities and professional associations.
You may also request a facilitated boardroom conversation with Martin.
Meet Your Author
Leadership Training
Martin Oduor-Otieno
Dr Martin Oduor-Otieno has spent more than four decades leading and transforming institutions. From the halls of government and global corporations to boardrooms across Africa. He is the Founder & CEO of The Leadership Group (TLG), a Nairobi-based firm equipping boards and executives with values-based leadership, coaching, and governance training. His leadership journey has taken him from Deloitte to the Kenya Treasury, from KCB Group Plc to EABL and BAT Kenya, shaping leaders with humility, empathy, and wisdom. Today, Martin’s work is dedicated to helping others lead with courage, clarity, and compassion: building people first, because people build institutions.
Take the Conversation Beyond the Book
Through The Leadership Group, Martin and his team help boards govern with greater clarity, courage, and humanity.
