Key Questions for Effective Board Governance

Building a board deck for your global talent strategy? Below is the board-level “readiness checklist” we help our customers during the design/business case phase. Treat each item as a question you must be able to answer crisply—with data, milestones, and ownership behind every point. 1. Strategic Fit 1. How does the global talent strategy advance our three-year product and growth agenda? 2. What differentiating capabilities will be built in-house vs. sourced via partners, and why? 2. Financial Return & Efficiency 3. What is the fully loaded cost-to-serve curve (Year 1, Year 3, steady state) compared with current spend? 4. What is the payback period and IRR under best-, base-, and downside demand scenarios? 3. Risk & Compliance 5. Which geopolitical, regulatory, and data-privacy risks are material across target locations, and how are we hedging them? 6. What IP-protection and cyber controls will match (or exceed) headquarters standards? 4. Talent Acquisition & Pipeline 7. What is the hiring velocity needed (offers/month, acceptance rate) and do we have a realistic sourcing plan? 8. How will we secure hard-to-find skills (GenAI, cloud, cyber) ahead of market inflation? 5. Retention & Culture 9. What is the projected attrition and engagement impact on our current teams, and how will we preserve culture across time zones? 10. Which career paths, L&D budgets, and leadership roles will anchor a compelling employer brand? 6. Operating Model & Governance 11. Who owns P&L, delivery, and talent decisions day-to-day, and what escalation paths reach the board? 12. What KPIs will be reviewed quarterly (e.g., productivity per FTE, release velocity, quality, cost per story point)? 7. Technology & Future-Readiness 13. How does the plan embed automation and AI from day one to avoid scaling yesterday’s processes? 14. What is our roadmap for upskilling existing employees worldwide to work seamlessly with the new center(s)? 8. Scenario Planning & Flexibility 15. How do we flex capacity ±20 % without recreating a large contingent workforce? 16. What is the contingency plan if hiring targets slip by 6-12 months or if a location becomes unstable? 9. ESG & Reputation 17. How does the strategy support diversity, equity & inclusion targets, local community impact, and our sustainability commitments? 10. Exit & Evolution 18. Under what conditions would we pivot—spin off, convert to a BOT/vendor model, or expand into new geos—and how fast could we act? Tip for the board deck: pair each question with one slide of evidence (metric trend, risk map, or milestone Gantt). When you can answer all 18 with conviction, you’re ready for any director follow-up. Zinnov Amita Goyal Rohit Nair Karthik Padmanabhan Mohammed Faraz Khan Namita Adavi Dipanwita Ghosh Hani Mukhey Amaresh N. Sagar Kulkarni ieswariya

BDO USA just sent me an article listing the 10 Questions Boards Should Ask to Build a Transparent Shareholder Communications Strategy. Tell me what you think: 1. Do we regularly review and update our publicly facing governance documents to align with our board agendas, governance activities, meeting minutes and other publicly issued documents? 2. Do we have a policy and process for shareholder outreach and do we review our communications to shareholders and others to ensure transparency? 3. What are the key concerns of our shareholders and are we adequately addressing them and communicating our response? 4. How can we proactively engage and communicate further with our shareholders? 5. Do our board composition and corporate governance policies align with our mission and values that provide credibility to our positions? 6. Are there weaknesses in our business operations and strategy that would attract activist attention? How are we actively addressing these? 7. Do we have a communication strategy in place for responding to activist demands? 8. Do we have advisors identified to help us navigate an activist campaign? 9. Do we have a strategy to balance prioritizing long-term value creation with addressing immediate concerns raised by activists? 10. Can we withstand the financial costs of dealing with activist campaigns and what are the impacts that a proxy battle may have on our business operations? As a board director, it is your job to ask these questions to make sure the business is bullet-proof for future risks.

There's a joke about the factory the future: it will be run by one human and a dog. The human's job is to feed the dog. The dog's job is to stop the human touching the machines. AI will replace the work of human operators in many leading companies. But there’s still no compression algorithm for ethical clarity or board governance - oversight can’t be vibecoded. In FT Agenda, the Financial Times' platform for corporate directors, Vilas Dhar and I share a call to action to Board Directors to demonstrate meaningful leadership in AI. As automation speeds up execution and flattens organizational layers, the role of governance becomes even more important. At BCG, we focus on ensuring that the behaviors, judgements and norms of humans are built into every technology loop. Here, we pose five questions every board should answer at their next meeting: 🤖 Where are humans being sidelined? 🧠 What assumptions are baked into our algorithms? 📜 Can we explain AI-driven decisions to regulators—and to ourselves? 🔍 What’s missing because it never shows up on a dashboard? 🗣️ Who speaks up when something feels off? Boards that win in the #GenAI era dont just ask about technology adoption - they explore culture, risk, and responsibility.  They are curious, questioning, and unquestionably human.   Boston Consulting Group (BCG)) BCG Henderson Institute NACD (National Association of Corporate Directors)#BoardGovernance, #ResponsibleAI, #Leadership, #AIEthics, #CorporateBoards, #Strategy, #AIGovernance #futureofwork

The BSA | The Software Alliance just published "Adopting AI Responsibly: Essential Questions for Board Leaders." With #artificialintelligence becoming a strategic business imperative for organizations, leadership teams and board leaders should be thoughtful to take the right approach when implementing and deploying #AIsystems. This useful checklist contains questions that #board leaders should ask, including: - What are the strategic opportunities and risks of using — or not using — #AI? - What are the legal, ethical, and risk-weighted processes in place to ensure the company’s appropriate use of AI? - What #data #governance processes are in place for AI use? - Is the #Csuite involved in managing #risks associated with AI use? - What laws and regulations apply, and how will those impact major markets? - What disclosures or transparency steps will the company make to stakeholders and customers? - Are trade secrets, #privacy, and #datasecurity adequately protected? - Are employees trained to understand and use AI appropriately? - How will the company measure the success of its AI adoption?

As a board member, I’ve seen the same pattern time and again: the biggest mistakes don’t happen due to a lack of answers, but because the right questions were never asked. In a landscape where AI is rapidly advancing, the same principle applies. The board’s role isn’t to know how to code, but to know what to ask — to anticipate risks and guide responsible decisions. Here are some critical questions every board should be asking: - What risks and opportunities does AI present for our company? - Are we considering AI as part of our compliance and risk oversight responsibilities? - Are we overseeing how our partners and suppliers are using AI? - Do we have the right controls to protect data integrity and privacy? Because without the right questions, there can be no good governance. What questions are being raised in your boardroom as technology transforms business? #CorporateGovernance #ResponsibleAI #RiskManagement #EffectiveBoards #BusinessLeadership