NACD in the News

• Limeade Predicts 2020 Employee Experience Market Disruptor: Authentic Care For Workforces

  Today employee experience company Limeade announced its prediction for the exploding employee experience market in 2020: a shift toward technologies that help companies show their employees that they care.

• Goldman Sachs pushes for more diverse boards of directors

  The CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, told CNBC Thursday that starting this year, his investment bank would refuse to help companies go public “unless there’s at least one diverse board candidate, with a focus on women.” He noted the nearly 60 companies in the U.S. and Europe that have gone public in recent years with all-male boards and said companies with at least one woman director perform “significantly better.”

• BlackRock support may offer momentum for SASB, TCFD disclosures

  (January 21, 2020) - In the absence of a government mandate but the presence of investor pressure, U.S. public companies are navigating an array of private options to guide what sustainability information they report publicly. Now, the world's largest asset manager has publicly and definitively picked a side — or two.

• BlackRock's climate stance spurs advocate optimism, corporate questions

  (January 17, 2020) - When the head of the world's largest asset management firm announced that he expects companies to consider their business in the context of climate change and that sustainable investments are the way forward, he added to mounting pressures on corporations to address environmental, social, and governance issues, experts and investor advocates said.

• Tip sheet: 2020 priorities for accounting and audit regulators

  The regulatory priorities of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and Financial Accounting Standards Board for 2020 and beyond impacting financial reporting and related governance should be top of mind for boards of directors and their committees as they perform their oversight, according to a recent publication of the National Association of Corporate Directors and Contributing Partners: “2020 Governance Outlook, Projections on Emerging Board Matters.”

• Board Smarts: Ease the Time Crunch

  Does it feel like your board is always in a time crunch? That’s a common feeling among association boards and CEOs, says Carol Hamilton, principal at Grace Social Sector Consulting. One culprit: poorly executed meetings that take away from time that could be better spent on strategic discussions.

• Companies Bracing For Recession This Year

  Companies are bracing for a recession this year, warns Grant Thornton. “While it remains unclear whether a recession will indeed occur and, if so, how significantly economic conditions will deteriorate, businesses are preparing for a potential downturn in the next 12 months,” the consulting firm asserted in a 2020 look-ahead by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD).

• A ‘Twist’ On Top Ten Governance Trends For 2020

  A twist, but hopefully not twisted . . . a slightly different take on developments likely to impact corporate governance in 2020. A list that doesn’t mention shareholder activism, cybersecurity, climate risks, nor SEC regulation. What follows are perspectives offered from a slightly higher altitude but still within sight of the tarmac.

• Key Board Takeaways From This Year’s NACD’s Public Company Survey

  The National Association of Corporate Directors’ (“NACD”) annual Public Company Governance Survey (the “Survey”) is an important resource for corporate boards and their primary committees.

• Inside TPG’s Massive Effort To Get Women Onto Corporate Boards

  Private equity firm TPG saw a flurry of bad press in 2019 when an executive heading its prominent Rise Fund was arrested and then fired for his alleged role in a college-admission cheating scandal. But the $119 billion in assets firm overseen by co-CEOs Jim Coulter and Jon Winkelried pressed on with Rise, a $4 billion platform dedicated to social and environmentally-driven investments, and TPG quietly ended the year setting a new standard in the $2 trillion private equity industry when it comes to diversity.