Board Effectiveness Thought Leadership Webinar

Impact Boards Emerging Markets and Board Excellence hosted a one-hour interactive online webinar featuring Kieran Moynihan, Managing Partner and Founder of Board Excellence. This was our first joint introductory event, following the recent announcement of our strategic partnership. 

During this introductory workshop Kieran focused on 3 key considerations for corporate boards globally: 

1) Strategy and business model agility 

In addition to typical board challenges, recent global developments have led to increasingly complex challenges for boards. ESG considerations have come to the forefront due to climate change and several regulatory changes. Technological developments have forced boards to include cybersecurity and AI in their agendas. In emerging markets, volatile macroeconomic and political conditions also need to be considered. The 3-5 year company strategies need to be frequently adjusted given these exogenous factors. Given this backdrop, there is a need for a step-change in collaboration between the executive team and non-executive directors on strategy and business model choices. Decision making processes also need to become much more agile. 

2) Addition of new skillsets and refreshing the board composition 

A significant number of boards take quite a static approach to their board composition, often leaving significant gaps in key skillsets as well as leaving under-performing board directors in place. Progressive boards are taking a far more dynamic approach to board composition, ensuring that critical skillsets are added as needed, and that unless a board director continues to consistently bring their A-game and significantly contributes, they are replaced by a board director who will. 

3) Grasping the nettle of CEO succession planning 

A majority of company boards struggle with CEO succession planning, often being caught off-guard and ill-prepared for a sudden departure of a CEO, or mishandle the development of internal candidates with the calibre to be a future CEO. At the core of CEO succession planning problems is a failure of the Board and Directors to drive the process in the face of an overly dominant CEO who does not support putting a proper succession process in place. High-performing boards understand the critical importance of and ensure a well-structured process is in place to handle both contingency and medium/long-term succession planning processes. 

Please see below the link for the video recording and presentation slides.