Boardroom

How can corporate secretaries help strike the right balance in its board materials? On the latest episode of the Governance Matters podcast, senior reporter Natalie Bannerman speaks to Davina Stanley, founder of Clarity First Program, a professional development initiative designed to help executives, managers and their teams. It enables them to refine complex ideas, improve communication and secure faster, better decisions from senior leaders and boards Directors often tell Stanley that understanding the board takes a fraction of the time once executives have completed her training. One even said they now spend 90 percent less time understanding the board deck…

The team breaks down the changes poised to redefine boardrooms and investor influence next year –Glass Lewis is considering registering as a US investment adviser, a move that would bring increased SEC oversight but could ease criticism from corporate leaders and Republican lawmakers. As reported by Reuters (paywall), Glass Lewis’ chief strategy officer Cheryl Gustitus said the firm is ‘seriously considering’ registration, though no timeline has been set. The potential shift follows broader efforts by CEO Bob Mann to reshape the proxy adviser’s role in corporate governance. In 2027, Glass Lewis plans to end its traditional ‘benchmark’ voting recommendations, offering…

What does it take to beat the competition and scoop up a Corporate Governance Award? On the latest episode of the Governance Matters podcast we’re joined by Paul Sharobeem, associate general counsel and assistant secretary at Century Aluminum Company. He tells Natalie Bannerman about what it meant to him and his team to win the award for Best Proxy Statement (small cap) in 2024, ahead of this year’s Corporate Governance Awards ceremony in November. We also discuss the importance of balancing narrative with regulatory compliance in corporate reporting, the challenges Century Aluminum is facing in the current climate and some…

This month’s Governance Matters podcast also explores learnings from 2025’s proxy season This month on the Governance Matters podcast, we’re proud to unveil the latest addition to our team: Natalie Bannerman, who is taking on the mantle of senior reporter. A former telecoms and infrastructure journalist, a role she held for nearlyseven year, Natalie also worked in the B2C startup space, covering lifestyle, arts and culture reporting. She speaks to us about her current projects, what she has made of 2025’s busy proxy season and what she is looking forward to covering in the world of governance, risk and compliance.…

This year’s lifetime achievement award-winner Helle Bank Jorgensen talks about her work with boards on sustainability matters When Governance Intelligence presented its 17th annual Corporate Governance Awards recently, Helle Bank Jorgensen, founder and CEO of Competent Boards, received the lifetime achievement award. Jorgensen is the founder and CEO of Competent Boards, a global organization offering accreditations for senior leadership. Board members and executives in more than 55 countries hold the Global Competent Boards Designation and Certification in Sustainability, ESG, Climate and Biodiversity due to Helle’s bespoke education programs. In a series of episodes of the Governance Matters podcast we have…

This month we hear from Nasdaq, which was crowned governance team of the year (large cap) Governance Intelligence recently presented our 17th annual Corporate Governance Awards at a gala event in New York, where a few hundred of the best and brightest in the profession got to let their hair down while celebrating success in the field. The awards honor outstanding achievements by the profession in areas such as hosting AGMs, compliance and ethics programs, ESG reporting, entity management, use of technology, proxy statements, investor engagement and corporate transactions. In a series of episodes of our podcast Governance Matters we’re…

In a short series of episodes we will hear from some of the winners of this year’s Corporate Governance Awards about their achievements and the road ahead Earlier this month Governance Intelligence presented our 17th annual Corporate Governance Awards at a gala event in New York. The awards celebrate outstanding achievements by the governance profession in areas such as hosting AGMs, compliance and ethics programs, ESG reporting, entity management, use of technology, proxy statements, investor engagement and corporate transactions. Over the next few episodes of the podcast we’ll hear from some of the winners about the work that the judges…

In the latest episode of the Governance Matters podcast, Ron Schneider of Donnelley Financial Solutions discusses best practices for these key documents Governance Intelligence is inviting members of governance teams from around the world to take part in a new online survey. Governance professionals often find it helpful to benchmark their work against the efforts being made by others at peer companies. That knowledge can be reassuring in showing that they’re on the right track, constructive in directing their efforts in a new direction or helpful in lobbying for additional resources from the company if needed. By taking part in…

Angela Grant of Palomar Holdings discusses how to develop a successful board education program Surveys of company executives indicate that their number problem with ESG is the multitude of partially conflicting and overlapping reporting frameworks and regulations:one estimate puts the number of ESG reporting frameworks at 600 worldwide. Another source, the healthcare, tax and accounting consultancy Wolters Kluwer, lists ‘multiple ESG frameworks’ as amongthe five biggest hurdlesto effective ESG reporting. But things might be slowly taking a turn for the better, partially as a result of investors pushing for more uniform and financially relevant ESG standards. Responding to investor pressure…

JLL’s Seth Gastwirth talks about how to design and make the most of assessments and how to plan a submission to this year’s Corporate Governance Awards Board assessments are an essential part of governance work and key to making sure directors can function well as individuals and as a team. In this episode of the Governance Matters podcast from Governance Intelligence, we hear from Seth Gastwirth, deputy general counsel and assistant corporate secretary at Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), about why board assessments are so important, how they can best be designed and how the results can be used to improve…