This Rule Is Board-Certified
We've been hearing a lot about company boards voting on major business decisions recently, but are these executive bodies being capitalized correctly? Test your knowledge. 🤔
Is it correct to capitalize this executive body in a sentence like this? "Company XYZ's Board of Directors voted to approve the CEO's pay."
Always
Sometimes
Never
And the correct answer is the third option, “never.” Although many people consider a board of directors or board of trustees to be a high and mighty body of power, it’s, in fact, a common noun, or widely used generic term, and, accordingly, not capitalized. There are many boards of directors, as there are many company presidents, vice presidents, and executives. They’re all important, but none of them are capitalized when used generically. An internal body or department is not properly capitalized unless it’s part of a specific name, such as the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association. In all other uses, internal bodies like “board of directors,” “board of trustees,” "sales department" and "sports department" are lowercased.