Boards of the Future: What next for governance?

As we have all been finding our feet and adjusting to new ways of working – and indeed living – the challenges faced by boards may have changed slightly but certainly haven’t lessened.

Increasing workload; managing regulation and reporting requirements; ensuring diversity; monitoring culture; balancing the needs of stakeholders and employees; and embracing technology - recent months have brought further pressures, and organisations have had to adapt quickly to ensure survival.

Just before the pandemic hit, we had started to conduct research amongst chairs, exec and non-exec directors and company secretaries of both listed and non-listed companies to get their views on some of these challenges. Since then, we’ve explored how boards have dealt with Covid-19 and new ways of working, and have produced a paper “Boards of the Future: what next for governance?” detailing what we expect boards will need to address to thrive.

What can attendees expect from the session?

The findings of this paper will be presented and discussed, with the document available to attendees prior to the session. There will be the opportunity to ask questions and contribute experiences.

Speakers

Walter Clark, Partner, Burness Paull

Walter is a corporate partner at Burness Paull, focusing on M&A, corporate restructuring projects and general corporate advisory work. Walter leads the firm’s Corporate Governance team, and is a Fellow of The Chartered Governance Institute.

As well as being dual qualified in Scots and English law, Walter has a degree in accounting and finance. Walter spent time on secondment with FTSE-listed Weir Group PLC as its Deputy Company Secretary, giving him an in-depth understanding of the practical issues facing boards and company secretarial teams on a day-to-day basis.

Website/Social Channels: www.burnesspaull.com ; Walter Clark | LinkedIn

Sheelagh Duffield, Managing Director, Savendie

Sheelagh is a senior executive and qualified lawyer with over 20 years of board level experience and a successful track record of leading complex projects and transactions in FTSE 100 and 250 companies; private equity owned businesses and public sector organisations.
Over many years as General Counsel and Company Secretary, Sheelagh has developed a thorough and practical understanding of corporate governance and the effective operation of boards. Sheelagh has held senior executive roles within the corporate departments of Scottish Power plc; Scottish Television plc and The Miller Group Limited at times when these businesses were delivering extensive strategic and organisational change. As a result, Sheelagh has a wide range of experience from a variety of sectors encompassing corporate strategy; business planning; risk management; in-house legal; company secretarial and governance practices.

Sheelagh is a non-executive director with The National Theatre of Scotland and Cricket Scotland and a course leader for the Institute of Directors delivering the Role of the Director and the Board which is part of the Chartered Director qualification. She is a corporate governance consultant with Burness Paull.

Savendie seeks to build on this experience and aims to provide Chairs of boards, CEOs and senior executives with advice and services to assist with independent board reviews; governance reviews and the design and delivery of strategic transactions such as acquisitions, disposals and IPOs.

This is an online event. To attend, book below via email. We will provide a joining link before the event.