The 2025 Governance Outlook
Summary
We spoke to Friso van der Oord, the NACDs senior vice president of content, about the top trends and how they will impact board operations. In a recent blog, past CISA Director Jen Easterly, who partnered with NACD and the Internet Security Alliance to provide a framework for integrating cyber risk, called on boards to promote a strong culture of cybersecurity as a key part of good governance, underlining that “their peers and the senior executives that they oversee are well-educated on cyber risk, that cybersecurity considerations are appropriately prioritized in every business, technology, and software acquisition decision, and that decisions to accept rather than mitigate cyber risks are scrutinized and revisited often.” Moving forward, board oversight will need to even more carefully balance the pursuit of value through digital technologies with the protection of value through more engaged cyber-risk oversight. Friso van der Oord: The ever-increasing complexity of the business environment and other disruptors are putting into focus the importance of the board-management relationship, especially considering the many high-profile CEO departures we witnessed in 2024. Friso van der Oord: Striking the right balance between choosing general, seasoned leadership or specialized experts is a new challenge for board recruitment. There tends to be concern about specific domain knowledge becoming obsolete quickly, but the challenges companies face today require varied leadership responses that career CEOs may not be able to provide.