Corporate Board Member’s Board Committee Peer Exchange offers an unparalleled opportunity for public company directors and general counsel to connect in a confidential, exclusive environment. Designed to foster meaningful collaboration, the Peer Exchange brings together leaders to tackle the most pressing challenges and opportunities shaping today’s boardrooms.
What sets this experience apart?
Ahead of the event, Corporate Board Member will gather input from participants to craft a custom agenda for each group, ensuring every session is laser-focused on what matters most. Guided by seasoned advisors, these dynamic discussions promise to deliver actionable takeaways you can implement immediately.
Peer Exchange groups include:
In an era of constant disruption and shifting stakeholder expectations, boards must challenge long-held assumptions to foster forward-thinking strategies and build resilience. This panel will explore how best-in-class boards are leveraging diverse perspectives to challenge entrenched thinking, anticipate emerging trends, mitigate risks and navigate uncertainty with agility. We’ll examine specific tactics to help your board drive better decision-making, strengthen organizational resilience, and lead with purpose through more intentional governance efforts.
Global Practice Leader, Board Services, Major Lindsey Africa
Chief AI Officer, Avanade
As regulatory landscapes evolve here and abroad, public companies must stay ahead of both global policy trends and domestic requirements. In this session, hear directly from a leading voice at the SEC as we explore the regulatory priorities shaping 2025 and beyond. From ESG disclosures and human capital reporting to cross-border compliance challenges, you’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of what’s in the SEC’s enforcement plans for the year ahead and how to prepare for upcoming changes.
Senior Vice President, Leadership Insights, DDI
President and Chief Executive Officer, Verisk
Our Board Leadership Awards recognize exemplary companies and individuals who go beyond the basic requirements of governance, regulation and compliance and serve as models for other companies and individuals to emulate. After another year of continued—and new—challenges, the 2025 Awards seek to shine a light on those boards who are making a positive impact serving all of their stakeholders—shareholders, employees, customers, partners and communities. We’re excited to showcase the very best in corporate governance at a time when great examples matter more than ever before:
Following the awards presentation, we’ll sit down with our honorees for a fireside chat on future-proofing the boardroom and their leadership lessons for sustaining success and relevance as a strong board leader.
Being a strong board leader requires bold decisions, especially in times of crisis and disruption. But disruption is nothing new. Every decade—every year—brings disruption. What separates the best boards—and in turn the best companies—from the rest is the ability to project resilience in the face of challenges. And the ability to balance the push-pull of short-termism versus long-term needs, being a culture carrier, making sure you have the right people in the right seats on your C-suite team, and projecting resilience in the face of challenges—are just a few parts of the job of a director. We’ll sit down to unpack some of the key lessons from this year’s Board Leadership Award honorees to help you more confidently lead your own organizations to grow no matter the circumstances.
Author, Boards That Lead and Boards That Deliver
Retired Host, Inside America’s Boardrooms; Co-Founder, Corporate Board Member
CEO, AlixPartners
Chair of Board, Mastercard International
Chairman of the Board, Molina Healthcare Inc.
Join fellow attendees for some festive networking as we celebrate our award honorees together in-person!
Gather with director peers and subject matter experts to explore pertinent board issues in a small group setting to allow for ample Q&A and idea sharing.
Highly effective board-CEO relationships depend on trust and communication. Join your peers for a conversation on maximizing output of time together, getting to the topics that matter, managing conflicts and embracing diverse views, and mastering power dynamics.
Featured Speakers:
Rick DeRose, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Acertitude
Kevin O’Neill, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Acertitude
Elon Musk’s moonshot grants brought conversations around large, special equity awards to the forefront this year. Has your board considered the merits of special equity incentives for your CEO and other key executives, along with the key considerations like Say on Pay risk, ISS and Glass Lewis criticism, and shareholder/activist investor pushback? Join your peers for a discussion on special compensation actions, including balancing retention, e.g. granting RSUs, and performance alignment, e.g. stretch performance goals tied to share price or other hurdles, special contracts, enhanced severance or change-in-control-protection, and more.
Featured Speaker:
The job of corporate director is transforming, requiring boards to rethink traditional structures and make a thoughtful assessment of the individuals sitting around the table. What conversations is your board having around how the new director profile is evolving? What steps is (or should) your board be taking to identify current and potential future skill gaps. Join your peers to make sure your board has a robust board assessment and succession plan in place to make sure you have the right skills and perspectives around the table to drive your company’s long-term strategy forward.
Featured Speaker:
Aligning the board’s vision with shareholder priorities has never been more critical—or more challenging. This session will share what’s top-of-mind for investors on fundamental governance issues, the common disconnects between boards and investors, and effective strategies for meaningful shareholder engagement and dialogue. Learn helpful strategies to build trust and strengthen your shareholder relationships as your board seeks to enhance long-term value creation.
Principal, PwC’s Governance Insights Center
Director, PwC’s Governance Insights Center
As artificial intelligence transforms industries, boards face unprecedented challenges in navigating its ethical, technological and regulatory dimensions. This session will offer a framework to help your board approach AI governance with confidence and integrity, ensuring sustainable and trustworthy practices within your organization. You’ll engage in hypothetical scenarios that highlight real-world applications of AI to foster a compelling group conversation around ethical dilemmas and responsible AI use.
Lead Director, ScanSource; Board Member, GMS Inc; Former CEO, Sonoco Products Company
Board Chair, Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Board Member, GM, Merck and KKR; Former CEO, Lucent Technologies
Co-Founder and Former CEO, Corporate Board Member, Retired Host, Inside America’s Boardrooms Co-Chair, 2024 Boardroom Summit
Board Chair, DocuSign; Board Member, Costco Wholesale Corporation, Sana Biotechnology; Former CEO, Frontier Communications
The Summit will include several sets of Topic Breakouts, allowing attendees to select sessions most relevant to their board role. You’ll engage with your peers and subject matter experts in highly participatory sessions and simulations on issues including:
We will explore how board effectiveness is impacted by corporate governance structure, board composition and practices, and common strategic and risk circumstances. This scenario-based session will help you benchmark your board’s performance by uncovering factors and practices that foster board effectiveness and agility on key governance areas including:
Featured Speakers:
It can be unnerving when an activist investor privately contacts a board, or worse, publicly publishes a letter outlining its criticism or wages a proxy contest to replace the board. How is a director, CEO or GC supposed to react? In this simulation, attendees will walk through the phases of an activist campaign from their initial private outreach through either settlement or proxy fight. Alongside specialist activism counsel, investment bankers and public relations professionals are the two other critical advisors to companies. This session will help you learn how to navigate the complex dynamics of handling an activist, particularly since these actions play out in the public sphere.
Featured Speakers:
In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital transformation and AI advancements, cybersecurity has never been more critical. Boards of Directors are now expected to play a pivotal role in safeguarding their organizations from both traditional cyber threats and the unique risks posed by artificial intelligence. Join us for a compelling discussion featuring two cybersecurity experts from Google Cloud’s Office of the CISO as they delve into the expanded responsibilities of Boards in establishing robust cybersecurity governance in the age of AI.
Featured Speakers:
Attendees select from interactive breakouts led by subject matter experts.
With M&A transactions getting bigger and increasing scrutiny from shareholders and other stakeholders, directors are under pressure to ensure that M&A transactions are completed in the right way. Whether you are on the sell side or the buy side, this panel discussion will give you the tools to ask the right questions and focus on the right aspects of the transaction.
Featured Speakers:
In a rapidly evolving regulatory and technology landscape, public company directors must stay ahead of the curve on critical legal and compliance issues. Join us for a roundtable to discuss the key areas where an open dialogue between the Board and the Chief Legal Officer is critical. This session will explore recent SEC enforcement trends, including scrutiny of disclosure controls and earnings management, and the role of the Board in overseeing AI and cybersecurity. We will also discuss ESG and anti-ESG trends, and CEO succession issues. Insights from this session will assist directors in having a meaningful dialogue with your chief legal officer.
Featured Speakers:
In a recent Simon-Kucher study, 70% of companies report price wars in their industry. Of the companies that admit to starting the price war, 60% of them say it was accidental. Are your company’s pricing strategies setting you up for success or pushing you into a price war? This session designed for board members to challenge management’s pricing strategies, identify and avoid value-destroying mistakes, and implement oversight practices that ensure your company’s pricing approach is a competitive advantage rather than a costly error.
Featured Speaker:
Bhavin Manjee, Partner and Board Member, Simon-Kucher
Directors must navigate a complex web of governance challenges, compensation decisions and stakeholder expectations while maintaining transparency and building credibility. This session will explore how trust underpins every aspect of modern boardroom decision-making, from fostering investor confidence to aligning internal and external stakeholders with the company’s vision. An interactive point-counterpoint format will evaluate real-world examples of boards navigating trust challenges during critical moments and invite attendees into the debate on how to best address different governance decisions and their corresponding communications.
Co-Head of the ESG Practice and a Managing Director, Joele Frank
Partner, Meridian Compensation Partners
Chief Executive Officer, The Chicago Network
Partner and Head of US Transactions, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP
Leader, U.S. Center for Corporate Governance, BDO
CEO succession is one of the board’s most critical and complex responsibilities. This session will go beyond traditional frameworks, using dynamic hypothetical scenarios to spark debate and explore tough questions, including: What do you do when the current CEO isn’t aligned with the process? How should the board navigate when an internal candidate seems ready, but investors favor an external option? And how can boards balance the CEO’s input with the need for independent decision-making
Board Member, Altria Group and TFI International
Leader, EY Americas Center for Board Matters
Principal, People Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP | EY - US.
Board Member, T-Mobile, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Camden Property Trust, and The Mosaic Company
Andy Fastow and the Enron board represent the ultimate cautionary tale for all boards. The Enron bankruptcy was the biggest in history at the time, costing thousands of jobs, while wiping out over $40 billion in shareholder value and retirement savings. Fastow plead guilty to two counts of securities fraud and served six years in a federal prison for his role in the bankruptcy.
His presentation will be a candid retelling of the Enron bankruptcy, an exploration of “rules” versus “principles” and unconscious biases. Fastow may have been an overly aggressive, unethical, unqualified CFO, but where was the board? A CFO can’t do financing in a major company without board approval.
Smart boards make bad decisions. Smart boards miss red flags. How? Going beyond just the retelling of the Enron scandal, the lessons from this presentation will provide a critical reflection for boards in the contemporary landscape. Learn 10 things directors can do differently than most are doing now to become more self aware, catch yourself not seeing things, and steer your company toward sustainable—and ethical—success.
Former Chief Financial Officer, Enron
