Governance Challenges 2021–2022: Digital Transformation Oversight

As companies round the end of 2021, a year that proved just as challenging as the notorious preceding one, a constant across industries remains: digitalization. No matter whether the company your board serves comprises mostly white-collar workers or food and beverage professionals, every company in the United States has undergone rapid-fire digital transformation since COVID-19 landed on our shores in March 2020. Some businesses have thrived. Others have merely survived, and still more who were underprepared for the cybersecurity and privacy risks associated with digital transformation found themselves at the mercy of ransomware syndicates preying on the vulnerable.

Were directors prepared to provide the oversight needed to mitigate the threats of digital risk and lost opportunity? As of the publication of the 2020–2021 NACD Trends and Priorities of the American Boardroom report, the answer was mixed. But another element of respondents’ answers was promising: they were aware of the need to strengthen their understanding of this ever-more-important oversight area. The following is a snapshot of what surveyed NACD members from across varied company types and market caps had to say about their digital priorities and their readiness for this epochal period of transformation. 

Beyond this, this edition of the Governance Challenges report provides guidance to directors on how to transform their own board’s digital operations, incentivize the right talent to drive digital maturity, gauge the success of complex automated technology operations, oversee the development of privacy compliance systems.…