Anticipating Strategic Disruption

In Person  |  April 12, 2024  |  12:00 PM - 2:00 PM CDT  |  Houston, TX

This panel explored how boards should adapt to accelerating disruption driven by technology, geopolitical instability, and shifting societal expectations. Panelists emphasized the need for boards to update their calendars, governance practices, and strategic oversight to remain effective.

They discussed building resilience, engaging in continuous learning, and adapting organizational structures to manage emerging risks—especially around AI. The session also addressed board performance, the value of tabletop exercises, handling activist investors, and the importance of empowering management to engage with uncertainty.

Key Topics Covered

• Accelerating Disruption Across Sectors: Why today’s disruption—driven by AI, climate change, war, and generational shifts—is more complex, combinatorial, and faster than in any previous era.
• Reinventing Board Cadence & Strategy: How traditional board calendars, reporting cycles, and risk frameworks are inadequate in a world of real-time disruption, requiring new models of strategic engagement.
• AI as a Structural Disruptor: Why boards must go beyond tech fluency to understand AI’s impact on decision rights, talent models, cross-functional processes, and organizational design.
• Scenario Planning & Board Preparedness: How war-gaming, tabletop exercises, and crisis simulations build board and management agility—and expose gaps in risk response and communication.
• The Role of Boards in Strategic Resilience: Why boards must help build cultural, organizational, and decision-making resilience—especially in the face of compounding risks and unpredictable shocks.
• Navigating Activist Investors with Discipline: How effective boards proactively challenge themselves, tailor engagement strategies to different activist types, and maintain a unified voice under pressure.
• Evolving Board Performance & Culture: Why high-performing boards must shift from compliance-driven oversight to dynamic, future-focused governance with greater diversity of thought, transparency, and challenge.

Key Takeaways

• Disruption Is a Constant—Boards Must Adapt: Today’s boards must embrace discomfort, abandon outdated rhythms, and engage continuously in strategic disruption and scenario planning.
• AI Demands More Than Tech Oversight: Boards must evaluate AI’s implications for organizational structure, accountability, and decision-making—not just its technical applications.
• Crisis Preparedness Is a Governance Duty: Regular simulations and scenario planning are essential for building institutional muscle memory, speed, and coordination under pressure.
• Strategic Judgment Requires Trade-off Thinking: Boards must lean into ambiguity, make informed trade-offs, and align on when and how to act—not just what to do.
• Board Culture Must Welcome Tension & Transparency: Psychological safety, candid debate, and permission to ask “dumb” questions are essential for uncovering risks and driving smarter oversight.
• Be Your Own Activist: Boards should continually assess what to create, preserve, or destroy—anticipating challenges rather than reacting to them.
• Future-Focused Boards Build for Resilience: Effective boards elevate strategic discussions, challenge assumptions, empower management to experiment, and prepare the enterprise for an unknowable future.

Program Videos

View the complete program playlist, including the following video clips: 

• Navigating Strategic Disruptions: Insights for Board Governance
• When Should Boards Act: The Importance of Strategic Decision Making for Boards
• Board Strategies for Resilience: Preparing for Disruptions
• Insightful Q&A on Anticipating Strategic Disruption
• Panelist Key Takeaways: Anticipating Strategic Disruption

Program Resources

• Powering Distribution for the Energy Transition
• The Five Key Forces of Change

Panelists

Senior Managing Director - Accenture Global Resources Strategy Lead; Chair, World Affairs Council of Houston

Vivek Chidambaram

Vivek Chidambaram runs Accenture’s Resources strategy business globally. He specializes in large scale AI, Gen AI and digital transformations at energy clients. Specifically, he applies systems thinking across the value chain and functional domains to drive these transformations…

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Former CEO, Beyond, Inc. Director, J.M. Smuckers Co.

Jonathan Johnson

Jonathan Johnson is the former CEO of Beyond, doing business at Bed Bath & Beyond (NYSE: BYON) where over 21+ years he helped build the company from a small start-up to a company doing $2B in sales…

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Director, Celanese Corp., GE Vernova, HP Inc, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Haven for Hope

Kim Rucker

Kim Rucker is an accomplished executive, holding senior leadership positions since 2018. She is currently on the Board of Directors of Celanese Corporation, a global specialty and materials company; Marathon Petroleum…

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