Name: Introducing Fortune's Modern Board 2023 list
Uploaded: 2023-05-09
Duration: 4 min 28 s
Description: The most effective corporate boards are increasingly diverse and highly collaborative—and are leading their companies to new heights.

The most effective corporate boards are increasingly diverse and highly collaborative—and  are leading their companies to new heights.

Introducing Fortune's Modern Board 2023 list

Leadership

I think a modern corporate board today is number one diverse. Number two, always learning and always evolving. And number three technology aware, your ability to be agile and understanding what the future looks like, what the potential and emerging risks are. And then using risk as a way to create competitive differentiation is really what's making companies successful and what makes modern boards even more important. When I look at boards, one of the first things I look at is their relationship with management because it's a collaboration with management that's going to enable, you know, really outside success. I get a lot of guidance from them on specific topics that are keeping me up at night and it could be, you know, should we make this acquisition or not, should we make this investment or not? So the board ends up helping me in all kinds of decisions about the company, both inside and outside of the board meetings and they are, you know, very trusted advisors. Uh For me, when I joined at five, I felt strongly that the technology industry at large had been apathetic to the issue of uh creating more diverse and inclusive environments. And our board had to reflect the representation that we wanted to have. So we, we were pretty deliberate about recruiting board members with a diverse background and they themselves uh contributed to recruiting some of the, the key diverse executives into the company. I've been so impressed with S and P Global Board nominating committee because the board actually changes based on the needs of the company each year. The nominating committee steps back and says, what are the capabilities, the background of the different experiences that the board is going to need going forward? Large businesses and especially public businesses are expected to have a position on social issues that are never black or white. And therefore board members find themselves in a, in a boardroom discussing things like should we take a stance on dreamers in the United States? What stance are we taking on Black Lives Matter? And so there are positions that one has to take and discussions that one has to have that used to not really be a boardroom discussion. And increasingly they are, I'd say the time commitment has gone up since I've been a board member. Uh for all the right reasons, as you might imagine with everything that's gone on, whether it be COVID or different types of economic volatility, et cetera, you know, you'll end up spending more time and that's appropriate. It just is important to understand what's going on in the environment around you so that when you're ready to make decisions with the board, you have the information you need to do. So we've got the diversity, the collaboration, the connection, the background to be able to see ahead and really influence strategies while mitigating risk and the risks are changing over time. Our biggest risk is the risk of, you know, being obsolete, not keeping up with the times, not making the bold investments that are necessary to be even more relevant in the future than you are today. Staying in the market, staying in the game and continuing to thrive requires making investment well ahead of the revenue and profit that will come from these investments. Our board has been absolutely critical to these decisions and in supporting a strategy of investing for the future of our customers.