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Perspectives
NACD’s 'Directorship' magazine articles
Recently published board-relevant perspectives
Deloitte leaders share insights on the challenging, emerging topics faced by today’s board members as published in NACD’s ‘Directorship’ magazine
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- The Next Normal in Technology: A Cause for Optimism
- The role of the board in overseeing ESG
- How purpose is changing the board M&A oversight role
- Technology without ethics is a wild beast
- Strengthening board M&A oversight in an uncertain time
- Rethinking the future of privacy
- Respond, recover, and thrive beyond COVID-19
- Keeping culture top of mind in the boardroom
- Harness the power of ESG transparency
- The Tech-Savvy necessity: Preparing the board to go beyond the digital frontier
- Get in touch

Thinking about the unthinkable: Crisis scenario planning and the board
January 2025
As boards contemplate the year ahead, they face a challenging risk environment. From technology to politics to climate change, there’s a seemingly constant emergence of new crises that are increasing in scope and complexity. For boards of directors, crisis scenario planning brings a sense of calm to the storm, anticipating and preparing them for potential crises that could impact operations, reputation, or financial condition, among other things.

Calculating the cost of CEO succession planning
June 2024
Succession planning is a frequent topic of boardroom conversation. But as the average CEO tenure has decreased and scrutiny of CEO pay has surged, the dialogue may take on a new level of urgency. Such discussions have many dimensions, including whether the next CEO should come from within or be recruited externally. We compiled information about 45 CEO transitions at S&P 500 companies from January 2022 to January 2024. The data reflect compensation details (base salary, target annual bonus, and the grant date fair value of “regular” annual equity awards) for both internal and external CEO hires. While the decision to promote from within or leverage external talent is specific to each company, our findings could be a starting point for boardroom conversations on succession strategy.

Current trends in governance
June 2024
While no one can know the future, there will always be risks that loom just beyond the horizon. With respect to governance, there are sundry forces that could be possible challenges—economic uncertainty, regulatory change, rapid technology advancement, geopolitical tensions, and political instability, to name a few. To some extent, these factors are likely to touch every industry with equal measure. But in some cases, the nature of the challenge to an organization’s governance may vary across industries.

Artificial intelligence: An emerging oversight responsibility for audit committees?
January 2024
Businesses are rapidly expanding their use of generative AI, often in ways that can impact core business processes. This makes it critical for audit committees to understand the related challenges and opportunities and the governance and enterprise risks such technologies pose. This article from Deloitte published in the National Association of Corporate Directors’ 2024 Governance Outlook Report lays out potential use cases and offers questions for audit committees to consider in tackling AI oversight.

Boards and transformation initiatives: Strategy is just the beginning
Fall 2023
Company transformation initiatives take many forms and can include a variety of efforts related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A), restructuring, divestitures, and workforce redesigns. While these project categories have differing goals and time spans, they can affect large swaths of a company’s operations and result in organization-wide change. Regardless of form, the board plays a critical role throughout the life cycle of any transformation initiative, from setting strategy, to monitoring execution, and finally to evaluating results.

Board Governance Structures and ESG
Winter 2023
Companies are facing increasing pressure to manage a growing range of risks as a result of rapidly evolving environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Climate-related factors have gained a great deal of attention among ESG matters, but the scope of ESG is much broader, including social aspects of a company’s relationships with its stakeholders and a growing demand for effective governance and transparency. How might boards adapt their governance structures to provide effective oversight in such a rapidly changing environmental and social landscape? What kinds of changes might boards make in the coming year?

Third-Party Risk Oversight
Winter 2023
As boards become more engaged with understanding their dependencies on vendors and other third parties, what measures can they take to oversee third-party risk with greater confidence and efficacy? Several possibilities are on the horizon—both actions companies are likely to take with increasing frequency and actions boards can task management with considering (if they are not already on management’s radar).
Archived Editions
Explore content
- The Next Normal in Technology: A Cause for Optimism
- The role of the board in overseeing ESG
- How purpose is changing the board M&A oversight role
- Technology without ethics is a wild beast
- Strengthening board M&A oversight in an uncertain time
- Rethinking the future of privacy
- Respond, recover, and thrive beyond COVID-19
- Keeping culture top of mind in the boardroom
- Harness the power of ESG transparency
- The Tech-Savvy necessity: Preparing the board to go beyond the digital frontier
- Get in touch
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