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The Chapter Network is one of the most valuable benefits of NACD membership. It’s a coast-to-coast governance community for actively engaged directors looking to cultivate meaningful peer relationships.
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The Chapter Network is one of the most valuable benefits of NACD membership. It’s a coast-to-coast governance community for actively engaged directors looking to cultivate meaningful peer relationships.
Leading Through Volatility: Protecting the Corner Office
Ask the Experts: Fall 2025
Archive
Email:
programs@texastricities.nacdonline.org
Phone:
346-250-2802
Jenn Cox
Executive Director
Mya Risner
Marketing & Engagement Manager
Chennya Lister
Chapter Administrator
Find a Chapter
Virtual | Oct. 28, 2025 | 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM CDT
We joined for a virtual Ask the Experts program, Leading Through Volatility: Protecting the Corner Office, where experts from Egon Zehnder, Global Guardian, and Grant Thornton shared timely insights on how boards can protect leadership stability amid mounting pressures. Directors examined how the CEO role has evolved in response to geopolitical unrest, cyber threats, investor activism, and burnout, and why adaptability, self-awareness, and authenticity now define effective leadership. The discussion highlighted that CEO well-being and resilience have become governance priorities, requiring boards to cultivate trust-based relationships, recognize early signs of fatigue, and integrate well-being into enterprise risk oversight.
Participants explored how proactive succession planning, both long-term and emergency, is essential to preserving continuity and credibility in volatile times. They also gained perspective on how executive protection now extends beyond the office to include digital exposure and family safety, reinforcing that safeguarding the corner office is inseparable from protecting organizational resilience.
Key Topics Covered
Reframing the Board’s Role as a Strategic Asset: Why boards must move beyond oversight to become trusted partners who add tangible value to the CEO and executive team.
Succession Planning in the Age of Uncertainty: The shift from static, event-driven succession to a continuous, scenario-based process that includes both planned and emergency contingencies.
Bridging the Board–CEO Trust Gap: How accessibility, empathy, and discretion shape whether CEOs see the board as a safe sounding board or a supervisory body to avoid.
CEO Turnover and Blind Spots: Insights into how overconfidence can cause boards to underestimate their own exposure to sudden CEO departures.
Leadership Development at the Top: The role of boards in ensuring that CEO and C-suite development includes behavioral growth—adaptability, self-awareness, and relatability—not just performance metrics.
Resilience through Preparedness: Why proactive planning and foresight, not crisis reaction, are now essential components of governance.
Key Takeaways
Be intentionally present: Directors must create structured and informal spaces for genuine dialogue with the CEO—time outside formal meetings builds trust and reveals early warning signs that won’t surface in board packets.
Institutionalize readiness, not reaction: Treat CEO succession as a continuous discipline tied to business strategy, risk oversight, and cultural evolution. The best boards view succession planning as a resilience mechanism, not a replacement plan.
Challenge your own confidence bias: Even high-performing boards often underestimate their vulnerability to unplanned CEO exits. Conduct “what-if” exercises and document immediate succession protocols before crisis hits.
Deliver feedback with candor and care: Ensure that CEOs and top executives receive meaningful feedback that balances performance metrics with leadership behaviors. The board can model constructive dialogue that strengthens the CEO’s growth and emotional resilience.
Focus on leadership energy, not just leadership performance: Supporting CEO well-being is a fiduciary issue, not a personal courtesy. Monitor stress and fatigue as leading indicators of organizational risk.
Invest time where it matters most: The most effective directors treat board service as a “full-time, part-time job”—remaining deeply informed, readily accessible, and consistently engaged between meetings.
Anchor every discussion in foresight: The boards that thrive through volatility are those that view resilience as a product of preparation—where every agenda, relationship, and review contributes to readiness before disruption arrives.
Program Videos
Program Resources
NACD: 2025 NACD Blue Ribbon Commission: Building a High-Trust Board-CEO Relationship
EGON ZEHNDER: The CEO Response: Accepting Uncertainty, CEOs Bet on New Levels of Adaptability
GLOBAL GUARDIAN: 2026 Global Risk Map Summary & Key Takeaways
GRANT THORNTON: Build Your Operating Model to Grow with Your Business
Panelists
The Houston Egon Zehnder office, established in 2006, is an executive search and board advisory leader in the global energy sector as well as serving clients in the private equity, services, consumer, and health-care sectors. They also advise boards and clients on leadership development, board and executive effectiveness and innovation.
Global Guardian is a Virginia-based global duty of care firm protecting employees and families from political, environmental, and security threats worldwide. It offers comprehensive travel and corporate security services including 24-hour operations center support, executive protection, medical transportation, travel intelligence, and emergency response across 140+ countries with expert military and intelligence leadership.
Grant Thornton is the U.S. member firm of Grant Thornton International Ltd, one of the world's leading independent audit & assurance, tax and advisory firms, with over 60,000 professionals in more than 135 countries who are ready to help public and private organizations of all sizes take on today’s challenges.
Email:
programs@texastricities.nacdonline.org
Phone:
346-250-2802
Jenn Cox
Executive Director
Mya Risner
Marketing & Engagement Manager
Chennya Lister
Chapter Administrator
Find a Chapter
By registering for an NACD or NACD Chapter Network event, you agree to the following Code of Conduct.
| NACD and the NACD Chapter Network organizations (NACD) are non-partisan, nonprofit organizations dedicated to providing directors with the opportunity to discuss timely governance oversight practices. The views of the speakers and audience are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of NACD. |