Let me paint a quick scene. It is a Tuesday morning in March. The annual general meeting of a Nifty 50 company is two weeks away. The board has spent six months on a thoughtful, intentional decision to delay CEO succession by a year — because the company is mid-way through a major acquisition and continuity matters. They have explained the reasoning in earnings calls, investor letters, and the proxy statement. Somewhere in a server in New York, an AI system ingests that proxy

Something significant happened in January 2026 that most people outside of Wall Street barely noticed. JPMorgan Asset Management — one of the largest asset managers on the planet, with voting rights over thousands of publicly listed companies — quietly cut ties with its proxy advisory firms. No more ISS. No more Glass Lewis. Instead, it launched an internal AI tool called Proxy IQ, designed to analyse data from over 3,000 annual company meetings and generate voting recommenda

If you speak to directors privately, not during the official meeting but afterwards, over coffee or in the corridor, you’ll hear something interesting. It’s not panic. It’s not even fear. It’s uncertainty. Not the usual kind. Not the “markets are volatile” kind. Boards have handled that for decades. This is different. The uncertainty now is about understanding what exactly they are responsible for in a world that keeps rewriting the rules. The key issues for boards in 2026 ar

The future of shareholder voting in 2026 is defined by one clear shift: investor engagement is becoming more active, more digital, and more continuous. What used to be a once-a-year voting ritual is now an ongoing conversation between companies and their shareholders. Boards are being questioned more closely. Institutional investors are building in-house voting systems. Retail investors are participating through digital platforms. And technology — especially AI — is changing

A few years ago, boardrooms were often seen as places where decisions were endorsed—not built. That’s no longer true. The 2025 proxy season has made it clearer than ever that boards have moved to the frontlines of corporate strategy. For professionals preparing to step into these roles, this isn’t just theory—it’s the new reality. From our experience at Directors’ Institute, the boards shaping 2030 are being moulded today. Here’s what this year’s proxy season tells us about t

Presented by Directors' Institute - World Council of Directors, in partnership with Woosong University In today’s rapidly evolving...