The Corporate Director Podcast

Has 2020 brought a real shift in terms of diversity and board recruiting—and what more needs to be done? Felicity Hassan from the executive search firm Audeliss talks about shared accountability, intersectionality, pipelines, privilege, and more.

From rethinking committee structures to navigating COVID-19, change, and ESG expectations, boards had a lot on their plates in 2020. Governance expert and former general counsel/corporate secretary Doug Chia shares his observations and recommendations.

PwC’s Annual Corporate Directors Survey is out for 2020, a year truly like no other. Leah Malone, a director in PwC’s Governance Insights Center, shares the latest findings including how DE&I is factoring (or not) into board composition and executive compensation. Then we speak with Melanie Nolen, Director of Research for Corporate Board Member about the latest Director Confidence Index created with Diligent Institute. Be prepared for some surprises.

What does it take to move the needle on board diversity—and help first-time board members truly have a voice in the board room? To gain some insights on recruitment, refreshment, and new member empowerment, podcast co-host Dottie Schindlinger talks to Coco Brown, founder and CEO of the Athena Alliance.

What does it mean to be a good employer and corporate citizen today? JUST Capital CEO Martin Whittaker talks about changing roles in 2020, the challenges of ESG reporting, and what boards should thinking about leading up to the US presidential election.

How can boards accelerate movement on diversity? Evaluations, mentorship, and initiatives like Board Ready can help—and strengthen boards’ responses to today’s “triple pandemic” of COVID-19, its economic repercussions, and systemic racial injustice.

What does a high-performing board look like in 2020, already a year like no other? To gain insights, podcast co-host Meghan Day talks to Anna Catalano, who serves on the boards of Willis Towers Watson, Kraton Corporation, HollyFrontier Corporation, Frontdoor, Inc., and Appvion.

“We may vote against the election of directors where we have concerns that a company might not be dealing with E&S factors appropriately.” This new addition to BlackRock’s corporate governance and proxy voting guidelines shifts ESG from “an afterthought to a strategic imperative” for boards, says Helle Bank Jorgensen, a globally recognized sustainability, climate change, and ESG expert. To help board members keep pace, Jorgensen founded Competent Boards to give current and future directors an online platform to learn from global experts and each other. The end goal is for board members to “get the tools to get the insight to get the foresight they need to make better decisions and make their companies more resilient.” In this episode, podcast co-host Meghan Day talks to Jorgensen about ESG, boards, and expectations today, drawing from Jorgensen’s experience advising companies from Maersk to Unilever, serving as a board facilitator for the UN Global Compact Board Program and serving on the expert panel for His Royal Highness Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability Project. (“The closest to royalty I’m going to get,” Day jokes.)

In the tumultuous year that has been 2020, it might seem prudent for companies to hunker down, lower expectations, and put proactive strategy on the back burner until the business climate stabilizes. Resist that urge, Shellye Archambeau says. Archambeau was among the first Black female CEOs in Silicon Valley when she held that post at MetricStream, a platform and software provider in the governance, risk, and compliance space. Speaking with podcast co-host Meghan Day, Archambeau drew from her board membership with Verizon, Nordstrom, Roper Technologies and Okta, as well as her new book, “Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms,” to talk about how boards can stay on track in today’s business environment.

The pandemic is transforming how corporate boards conduct business. For starters, with months of virtual meeting experience now behind them, most board members have largely mastered this tricky terrain. Can boards apply the best habits of today’s virtual meetings to more effective operations beyond the COVID-19 crisis? Eileen Kamerick brings a particularly rich perspective on the subject. She serves on the boards of four companies—AIG Funds, Associated Banc-Corp, Legg Mason Closed-End Mutual Funds, and Hochschild Mining—and chairs three audit committees and one corporate governance committee. From all of the virtual meetings she’s attended since March, and her extensive governance and corporate leadership experience, she has some insights and suggestions. Here Kamerick joins co-hosts Dottie Schindlinger and Meghan Day to talk about what she’s seeing and how lessons learned could—and should—shape the future.