Managing Reputation: Evidence from Biographies of Corporate Directors

•We examine the disclosure decision in biographies and find that disclosure of directorship experience is more likely to be withheld when it was held at a firm that experienced an adverse event during the director's tenure.•Non-disclosure rates for adverse-event directorships decline significantly after the SEC mandated the disclosure of recent past directorships, which suggests that the regulation had some effect on the withholding of unfavorable information.•Disclosing directorships held at troubled firms appears to have real consequences. The average stock market reaction to director appointments is more negative when directors disclose such directorships than when they do not.•We find labor market consequences. Directors whose adverse-event directorships are disclosed are more likely to lose a current directorship in the two years after the filing than those who do not disclose.