Board Characteristics and Financial Performance of Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria
Abu, Seini Odudu; Okpeh, Arumona James; Okpe, Uchenna James

Abstract
This article is set to investigate the influence of Board Characteristics on the Financial Performance of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria for the period of 2005-2014. The total number of listed deposit money banks as at 31st December, 2014 are seventeen (17) out of which a sample of fifteen (15) were used for the study. The study categorically seeks to examine whether board characteristics (proxy by executive director, independent director, grey director, women director and foreign director) has any influence on the Performance of listed Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria. The study adopted multiple regression technique as a tool of analysis and data were collected from secondary source through the annual reports and accounts of the sampled banks. The findings show that foreign director is significantly and positively correlated or influenced the Performance of deposit money bank, while the grey director have negative significant effect on the Performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria. Other variables such as executive director, independent non-executive director and women director have no significant impact on banks performance in Nigeria. Therefore, the study among others recommended that the management of deposit money banks in Nigeria should increase the number of foreign directors on board to a certain number as they have skills, expertise, experience and would like to protect their integrity, reputation and professional competence with creativity and innovation to manage the relationship between the boards and stakeholders leading to an improvement in the bank financial performance. Similarly, the number of grey directors on board should be reduced to an average of three (3) or four (4) as the case may be in order to overcome its negative effect on performance.

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