I was involved in three events last week relating to governance, leadership and boardrooms. Considering that I had left the regulatory space for more than a year, I am happy that my thoughts and views on those subjects still matter to some.
Jamie Allen, the Secretary General of the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA) bought me breakfast at the side of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) conference in Kuala Lumpur last week. Allen was accompanied by Benjamin McCarron, the Managing Director of Asia Research & Engagement.
The main topic of our discussion was on the development of corporate governance in Malaysia and what should be the key areas which need to be focused on to enhance our governance standards. We did touch on having strong culture in boardrooms and at the C-suites as one possible focus area. Inevitably, for such to happen, we need more directors who are not only competent by mush have strong conscience to move the agenda forward.
Later in the day I spoke at a forum on The Future of Work. The session was sponsored by EY, as part of the ICGN conference programme. It was chaired Bin Wolfe who is responsible for EY's talent decelopment in Asia-Pacific. Also on the panel was Jeffery Williams from China Universal Asset Management and Shareen Ghani, the CEO of Talentcorp.
From the boardroom perspectives, corporations need to align their talents with the continuously changing business landscape which require strategies and business models to be reviewed more frequently. A great strategy is only as good as its implementation, hence, matching talents must be available. One of the pushback when new talents are brought in would be culture, again. Culture, it not shaped properly, would mitigate whatever new ideas and thinking of new talents. Board must pay attention to this and follow up with strong discipline.
It was great that EY decided to bring the talent issue to the forefront in front of the global audience. Talent development and retention are major topics discussed in Asian boardrooms, especially as part of succession planning of the board as well as the C-suites.
The next day, I was invited by the Federation of Public Listed companies to share my views on how independent directors could manage expectations of their performance given the changing landscape and regulatory developments.
One of the issue which I raised was the ability of directors to keep up with new developments in many fronts, society, technology, economy, environment and regulation - the drivers of change.
While it would be great is a director is able to cover most of the issues, the total skills of the people in boardrooms matter. Hence, proper succession planning and having access to good advice would be helpful. However, ultimately, members of the board have to make the right calls, irrespective of the consequences on themselves. That is really challenging is board members are relying on board fees to finance their lifestyles.
One common theme from the three engagements above is about the need to have senior people with competent and conscience in boardrooms and C-suites. While competency is certainly a prerequisite for most organisations, conscience could be something which had not been focused on enough all this while.
It is time to bring conscience as a must-have criteria for those responsible to govern, lead and manage organisations.
