is a director an executive position?

Answer 1

Directors can be executive or non-executive.

The role and responsibility of an individual director, of course, would depend upon the nature of his directorship. Broadly, there are three types of directors. Full time, executive director who is normally a paid employee of a company having some functional responsibility, non executive but non independent director who is normally a promoter of the company or having high stakes in the company and finally independent directors who are not full time directors. There is another class of directors known as nominee directors representing some interests like lending institutions etc. An executive director, by very nature has much more responsibilities than non executive directors. In law it is their responsibility to ensure compliance with provisions of law failing with they could be held liable as officers in default. As far as independent directors are concerned, the position of law is nebulous.

Of late there has been great emphasis in appointing independent directors on the Boards of companies. The rationale of having independent directors on the Board of a company is with an idea to keep a special eye on the finances of a company particularly through the audit committee. It is a known fact that most of the companies which went into difficulties in USA did have independent directors. Mere presence of directors who are independent in terms of the provisions of law does not mean that there would be checks and balance. What is to be ensured is that these directors think and act independently. Even though in law, the directors are to be elected by the shareholders, yet, in practice, the directors proposed for election are normally the nominees of the promoters.

Answer 2

No. Executives have some line responsibility at various levels.

Answer 3

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There's no way to know without seeing the organizational chart of the particular company. Some hand out "director" or "vice president" titles like they're candy.

Answer 4

Usually, except in the motion picture industry.