Governance Matters

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 talking to some of the winners about the work that helped them land their awards and some of the challenges they see in the coming year.Nasdaq had quite the bumper evening at the awards. The company won the titles for governance team of the year (large cap), best director training and education program and best ESG reporting (large cap). It was also nominated in the best global entity management category.In this episode, I speak to Erika Moore, corporate secretary and deputy general counsel at Nasdaq, about the details of the company’s award-winning director training and education program, its first governance roadshow and her team’s successful approach.The Governance Matters podcast provides listeners with insight into cutting-edge issues of the day for corporate secretaries, general counsel and other governance professionals. The series looks at how the roles of governance professionals and the board – as well as the landscape in which they operate – are evolving.

Director training and education is one of the keys to ensuring boards can fulfill their duties while adapting to changing circumstances affecting the company. Corporate secretaries and other governance professionals play the central role in planning for necessary information to be passed to the board, either from themselves or through in-house or external advisers.There’s no one-size-fits all approach but there are important lessons to help the board succeed and avoid potential problems. An effective director training program helps create a foundation for a high-functioning board that can oversee risk and strategy effectively while understanding the needs and interests of shareholders and other stakeholders.An unsuccessful program can have the reverse effect. ‘If a director speaks to an institutional investor and [he or she is] not prepared it can have implications for the organization,’ says Joan Conley, board member at EJF Acquisition Corp and Tigo Energy and former corporate secretary of Nasdaq, in Governance Intelligence’s recent Governance Playbook on the topic, which contains advice from a range of experts.One of those experts is Angela Grant, chief legal officer and corporate secretary at Palomar Holdings, who in the latest episode of the Governance Matters podcast discusses how director training works at her company, how to identify the kind of topics directors might need more information on and bringing in outside experts, among other things.The Governance Matters podcast provides listeners with insight into cutting-edge issues of the day for corporate secretaries, general counsel and other governance professionals. The series looks at how the roles of governance professionals and the board – as well as the landscape in which they operate – are evolving.From ESG and entity management to shareholder engagement, regulation and technology, hear from governance experts and leading advisers about the latest public company governance matters.Click to listen and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Acast.

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 performance.