#board-criticism

#board-criticism

West Bromwich Albion acknowledges media reports relating to the club's compliance with the EFL's profitability and sustainability (P&S) rules. The club considers that it has fully complied with the P&S rules.

"I'm in favor of not having any rules against insider trading. I would like all the information out there as soon as it's available. Because look, as a society, we are better off knowing as soon as possible anything that is knowable."

The shift was apparent. People had a stake in the outcome, and they acted like it. Ideas flowed more freely, teams spotted and solved problems earlier, and employees took pride in identifying and implementing improvements.

Companies with a higher number of women in senior roles are significantly more likely to dismiss male perpetrators of abuse against female colleagues, according to recent analysis.

According to Bloomberg Law's Workload & Hours Survey, a third of nonequity partners also say they're undervalued in their roles and more than half say they were burnt out in 2025.

In 2025, the financial package handed to Andy Jassy, president and CEO, was $2.07 million, compared to $1.6 million in the prior calendar year.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took the unprecedented step of designating a U.S. firm-Anthropic-as a supply chain risk. Anthropic's crime? It refused to violate industry-wide protocols against using AI for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. Hegseth's designation, which has until now been reserved for foreign firms, bars U.S. military contractors from doing business with the company.

Research finds that relying on regulations to determine your policies and procedures can result in ethical blindspots, or situations where people might think if there is not a rule for something, that it's permissible. After years of shifting towards values and culture-based compliance, leadership might be heading the opposite direction.

Rather than stolen data making headlines, it was business stoppage that triggered attention. Moving into 2026, the board's focus should be on ensuring business continuity and building resilience in the face of emerging risks generated by AI usage and attack vectors, quantum computing and geopolitics.

CEOs are struggling to find their footing these days. Their role seemed clearer during Covid, when many executives rose to the challenge of becoming inspirational figures. They led their businesses while guiding their employees through a challenging shared experience. That was the case as well for many U.S. CEOs in 2020 when George Floyd's murder shocked the nation, and employees looked to their leaders for guidance and assurance.

As we kick off 2026, activist investor campaigns are no longer just prevalent; they are global, sophisticated, and have increasingly become an acute threat to corporate leadership. The escalating pressure is undeniable: Barclays data shows that activist investor campaigns hit a high last year - surpassing 2024 by 5% - with 32 CEOs resigning as a result (a record) - and showing no signs of slowing down.

I have been monitoring the degree of diversity in the corporate and political worlds for decades. One useful diversity metric is the percentage of boardroom members who are not white men. And for the third year in a row, white men did not hold the majority of seats on the boards of America's 50 largest corporations, according to my analysis of the most recent Fortune 500 list.

U.S. worker engagement has stagnated for decades, with more than two-thirds of workers feeling detached or disengaged. To reverse the trend, many executives have strived to build an "ownership culture," hoping personal responsibility will drive productivity. Yet most omit the most vital ingredient, actual ownership. We spent the past four years studying companies that committed to this missing piece, extending equity to all employees.

As audit committees confront a rapidly expanding risk landscape, their role in corporate governance is being reshaped. Boards have often turned to current and former CFOs as independent directors, particularly for audit committees, because of their ability to translate complex operational and financial realities into effective oversight.For example, this month, J. Michael Hansen, former EVP and CFO of Cintas Corporation, was appointed to the audit committee at Paychex.