President’s Report to Members - April 2023 International Council meeting

Dear Members,

I would like to take this opportunity to let you know what was discussed, as well as some important decisions taken, at The Chartered Governance Institute’s most recent international Council meeting held as a hybrid meeting in Dublin on 20 and 21 April 2023.

Council meetings are now back to the regular practice of face-to-face meetings twice per year, although now offering a virtual option.  Council will also continue to hold virtual-only meetings on an ad hoc basis as required. 

COUNCIL MATTERS

2020 + Strategic plan

The 2020+ Strategic Plan which guides the Institute’s priorities and focus was put in place in October 2020 has served the Institute well.  However, the Council was of the view that it was time to undertake a complete strategic review and develop a new strategic plan as circumstances are continually changing.

In the first part of Council’s discussion on strategy there was an update on progress made on key initiatives since September of 2022:

• Two Memorandums of Understanding with Latin American organisations were put in place in late 2022. CGI has very little presence in Latin America and these MoUs are an important first step to increasing CGI’s visibility.
  
  The first is with The Colegio Nacional de Consejeros Profesionales Independientes de Empresa, A.C.; Mexico. The CNCPIE is the leading association for independent Directors in Mexico and has an influence throughout Latin America.  To date, there has been collaboration on a webinar on climate change as well as the exchange of several thought leadership papers on the same.  Each organisation will also contribute speakers to upcoming conferences and seminars.
  
  The second MoU is with the Asociacion de Secretarios Corporativos de America Latina.  The ASCLA is an organisation of corporate secretaries across Latin America.  As the interests of ASCLA ad CGI are aligned this MoU will also increase visibility across Latin America.
  
  
• The CGI Global Passport launched with the eNewsletter on Tuesday 14 February 2023. A dedicated landing page has been developed on the global website. Divisions have been encouraged to also develop a dedicated website landing page for the eCommunity and the global passport.  There have been multiple communications from Divisions.
• The graduate/new-member sub-community called The Governance Gateway launched on 10 October 2022. All Divisions have been involved in identifying support staff in their offices and contributing to the features of the sub-community. Growth in participation started slow but has been increasing as this year progressed.  New features have been implemented such as:
  • Eye to eye – virtual networking
  • 99 seconds – the Tik Tok of governance where participants share topics with peers.
  • State of the Division – relaxed discussions with the Division Chief Executives.

The eCommunity continues to be a valuable asset for the global Institute.  There are now over 4,900 registered users of the platform with growth at 19% per year for each of the last two years.

You can access the eCommunity here and if you have not registered, I urge you to do so. 

Strategic review

The Institute has undertaken several reforms over the last many years and so the Council was of the view that a comprehensive strategic review needed to be commenced to realise the full benefit these reforms can deliver. 

The strategic review is set to take place at the September Council meeting later this year.  Prior to this Council will hold a virtual Council meeting that will be devoted solely to how the strategic review will be structured and agreeing the key questions that need to be addressed. 

In addition, Council agreed to undertake comprehensive market research across all nine Divisions that seeks to understand the brand value of being a governance professional, the importance that the market places on being Chartered and the attractiveness of the International Qualifying Scheme.  The results of this research will be in hand well before the September strategic review. 

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS COMMITTEE (“PSC”)

As reported earlier, under the guidance of the Professional Standards Committee the Council agreed to undertake a project to develop Competency Standards for Chartered Secretaries and Chartered Governance Professionals.  This project is now well underway.

The purpose is to provide Divisions with the flexibility they need to develop a qualifying programme structure in a way that meets the local needs of their jurisdiction whilst at the same time maintaining the standard that the community expects from a Chartered Secretary or Chartered Governance Professional. 

It is expected that an interim report will be available to Council at the September meeting this year with the final report presented to the PSC, and then Council, in early 2024. 

Council also ratified the appointment of two new members of the PSC, Ms Coral Ingley from New Zealand and Professor Michael Adams from Australia, and thanked Mr Laurie Factor from Australia for his valuable contribution to the work of the committee for well over a decade. 

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP COMMITTEE (“TLC”)

The Council received a report on the work of the TLC and the work being undertaken by the Institute’s Policy Adviser – Gertrude Takawira.

The third thought leadership paper for 2022, The impact of Covid-19: a multi-jurisdictional assessment was released in October 2022. This review paper summarised the practical and very real changes that occurred in a number of the Institute’s nine Divisions. The paper is structured under 10 areas namely: a ban on public gatherings, virtual or hybrid meetings, flexible work, career development, gender balance, fairness, technology, culture, staff retention and attitudes towards risk.

The first paper for 2023, Boards fit for net-zero was released in February 2023. CGI took an interest in this because, as governance professionals, we have an obligation to assist our organisations to put in place strategies to that work toward the limit of 1.5°C.  The focus of this paper was not so much on the science of achieving net-zero but on the necessary aspects of good governance that will lead to success. 

The Council was also updated on plans to develop a virtual knowledge centre with a working title of Climate change knowledge centre for governance professionals.

Members of Council agreed that climate change was the biggest global governance and risk management issue in generations and that the Divisions and the Global Institute should be able to collaborate on it.

The virtual centre will be an enhanced service to members in all Divisions as it will bring together the work of all nine Divisions in terms of intellectual property, commentary and training in a single digital environment.

CONCLUSION

I would like to thank all my colleagues on the international Council for their focus and engagement and all the time freely given for the benefit of our membership and to Immediate Past-President Peter Turnbull (Australia), Vice-Presidents John Heaton (CGIUKI) and Dr Syed Hamid Aljunid (Malaysia) as well as Alan Au (Chair of PSC) who serve on our Executive Committee.

As always, the work of members who serve on Divisional councils or sit on branch committees throughout the world is very greatly appreciated. In addition, the work of the Director General, Tim Sheehy, our Institute Secretary, Cynthia Mora-Spencer, our Policy Advisor, Gertrude Takawira, as well as all the CEO’s and staff in our 9 Divisions, is critical in generating support for these recent new international initiatives.

Yours sincerely,

Jill Parratt FCG
International President
8 June 2023