Underhill Co., a publicly traded company, publishes books and journals in the fields of Medicine, Dentistry, and Life Sciences. The company has recently endured a scandal in which account executives for several of its professional journals were shown to have received payments from authors in exchange for publishing their papers. Underhill Co. is actively exploring a restructuring that would seek to develop Asian markets and to move from print media to an online distribution system.

The company’s nominating committee has two board vacancies to fill and five candidates. Of the five board members who will continue in office, four are men and one is a woman; two are employees of the company (including its current chief executive officer) and three are independent; one is African-American, one is an English citizen of European extraction, and the remainder are European-Americans. The continuing inside board members have spent their careers in business; the continuing outside directors include a former member of Congress, an architect who is the son of the company’s founder and holder of 25 percent of its stock, and a professor of Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The five candidates’ qualifications are as follows:

Alan Able: Age 68. European-American. Retired CEO of Underhill Co. Graduate of Harvard (AB) and Stanford University (MBA in Marketing). He spent his career at Underhill, starting in the stock room and returning after completing his education. Improper payments for publications were received by company officers under his tenure but he was not personally involved. Under his leadership, Underhill Co. doubled in size and saw its profits grow by an average of 7 percent per year. Able’s candidacy is favored by the son of the company’s founder.

Janice James: Age 57. African-American. Graduate of Middlebury College (AB). She is a renowned poet and novelist and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Member of the Board of Directors of Placing Kids First, a charitable organization dedicated to improving educational opportunities for underprivileged children.

Betty Brown: Age 43. European-American. Graduate of University of Illinois (AB and JD). A specialist in trademark and intellectual property law, she currently serves as the company’s in-house general counsel. Formerly a partner of Smith & Wallis, a law firm with 450 attorneys around the country. She is being groomed as a possible successor to Underhill Co.’s current chief executive officer.

Samuel Chin: Age 58. Chinese-American born in Hong Kong. Graduate of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Bachelor of Accounting) and Singapore Management University (MBA in Accounting). Fluent in Chinese, English, and Malay. A former partner at a “big four” accounting firm, he now runs a successful hedge fund focusing on emerging markets in Asia.

David Drake: Age 73. European-American. Retired five-star general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military office in the United States. He is a graduate of West Point and a member of three other boards of directors in the defense, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical industries.

Which of these candidates should the company select to fill the vacancies?