The theme of CGIUKI’s 2024 annual conference, Governance 2024 is ‘Across the board.’ Governance roles come with the privilege of access to the boardroom, often from very early on in ones’ career.
Our members are privy to the workings of the board, from sourcing and preparing papers and reports, hearing board discussions and witnessing decision-making processes, to minuting conversations and following up on actions to ensure positive progress. Governance professionals will also likely be involved in board recruitment and induction processes.
With all of this boardroom experience, as governance professionals move through their careers, taking on a board role feels like a natural progression. This is a subject on which Oliver Cummings, CEO of Nurole, will be speaking at Governance 2024. In a recent episode of the Enter the Boardroom podcast, he discussed tips on how to make the board more effective.
- CEO appointment is the responsibility of the board. Getting that wrong makes it very difficult to achieve the organisation’s strategic aims.
- Boardrooms are spaces for debate; constructive challenge should be encouraged.
- Diversity goes wider than demographics. Introducing people from different professional or sector backgrounds can open up discussions.
- It is not enough to recruit a diverse mix of people onto the board, they need to be included in a way that enables them to participate fully in order to have a meaningful impact on the performance of the board and, consequently, the organisation.
- The board is not just there to ‘rubber stamp’ decisions, they should be part of the process.
- Understand the limits of the risk register and identify what is not included to ensure that those which fall outside of the framework are not overlooked.
- Board performance reviews will only bring value if boards review the feedback and take action to make improvements.
Hear more from Oliver and the panel about how governance professionals can get their first NED role at Governance 2024 taking place on 3-4 July.
