Introduction Somewhere in the last two years, AI quietly moved from "an IT initiative" to "a board-level risk." Most companies haven't caught up to that shift yet. We say this from experience training directors across sectors: AI is still, in far too many boardrooms, something the CIO updates the board on once a quarter, in a slide or two, somewhere near the bottom of the agenda. That's no longer good enough. AI systems are now making decisions that affect customers, employee

Executive Summary There's a date sitting on a lot of compliance calendars right now that deserves more attention than it's getting: 2 August 2026. That's when the bulk of the EU AI Act's high-risk obligations become fully enforceable, and along with it, two things that used to live in the "nice engineering hygiene" bucket, model cards and data lineage documentation, become audit requirements with real teeth behind them. I want to be upfront about something before we go furthe

Executive Summary Somewhere inside your organization right now, an AI agent is probably doing something nobody explicitly asked it to do in that exact way. Approving a small vendor payment, maybe. Drafting a compliance filing. Or talking to another company's AI agent, with neither human on either side actually watching that exchange happen. Welcome to agentic AI, and to the reason "AI governance" quietly stopped meaning "who fact-checks the chatbot" and started meaning someth

Executive Summary A few years back, if a regulator asked a company about its AI oversight, a nicely worded policy document and an ethics statement on the website would usually get you through the conversation. That's genuinely not true anymore, and it's not true because of one single dramatic law. It's true because a handful of state-level regulators in the US, along with EU enforcers, started asking a much more annoying question this year: prove it. The thing forcing that qu

The appointment of Saloni Narayan as an Independent Director of BalanceHero India reflects a pattern that has become increasingly visible across India’s financial services sector — one where technology-led lending and payments platforms are actively seeking directors whose judgment has been tested inside the country’s largest and most systemically important banking institutions. Her arrival on the BalanceHero India board comes at a time when the company, in common with much o

World Development Corporation Directors’ Institute – World Council of Directors today recognised 20 accomplished directors and senior executives who completed its International Corporate Directorship Programme (ICDP) and opted to complete an optional course offered by Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, acknowledging their academic rigour, strategic depth, and demonstrated readiness for senior leadership and governance responsibilities. The recognition highlights prof

AI governance expectations, regulatory priorities and technology risks continue to evolve. Organizations should assess their specific circumstances and applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

Executive Summary There's a specific kind of governance gap that doesn't show up until someone actually asks the awkward question out loud: not "does your board discuss AI," but "if your AI-powered dashboard flagged something dangerous right now, is there a written policy telling anyone what happens next?" A lot of boards, when they actually sit with that question, don't love their own answer. I covered the AI expertise gap in a companion piece already, the fact that a striki

Board composition practices, governance requirements and market expectations vary by jurisdiction and company. Boards should assess their composition against their organization's strategy, risk profile, regulatory environment and applicable governance requirements.