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Perspectives
2021 boardroom agenda
Board Practices Quarterly, February 2021
By Natalie Cooper, Bob Lamm, and Randi Val Morrison
In September 2020, Deloitte and the Society for Corporate Governance announced the collaborative launch of the Board Practices Quarterly, a new series of periodic reports based upon brief surveys of Society members. The Quarterly replaces our long-standing Board Practices Report to bring you insights and benchmarking data more frequently.
This issue of the Board Practices Quarterly identifies some of the key areas and trends expected to be on boardroom agendas this year, according to a December 2020 survey of in-house members of the Society for Corporate Governance. These areas look beyond perennial agenda items, such as strategy and risk, and instead focus on new and emerging topics as many companies continue to respond to unanticipated events that unfolded during 2020.
The survey explored two specific topics in detail, pandemic response and recovery and human capital management, to obtain greater insight on shareholder engagement, meeting agendas, and disclosures.
Findings
Respondents, primarily corporate secretaries, in-house counsel, and other in-house governance professionals, represent public companies (91%) and private companies (9%) of varying sizes and industries.1 The findings pertain to all companies; public and private. Where applicable, commentary has been included to highlight differences among respondent demographics. The actual number of responses for each question is provided.
Download complete findings as well as results by respondent demographic in boxes above.
End notes
1 Public company respondent market capitalization as of December 2019: 38% mega- and large-cap (> $10 billion); 43% mid-cap ($2 billion to $10 billion); and 19% small-, micro-, and nano-cap (<$2 billion). Private company respondent annual revenue as of December 2019: 45% large (> $1 billion); 36% medium ($250 million to $1 billion); and 18% small (<$250 million). Respondent industry breakdown: 33% energy, resources, and industrials; 29% financial services; 26% consumer; 8% life sciences and health care; and 5% technology, media, and telecommunications.
Recommendations
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Board Practices Quarterly, September 2020
Get ready: How boards can prepare for activism’s next wave
On the board’s agenda, February 2021