2020

2020 Global human capital trends Part 2: Social enterprises tap into potential, gain perspective

Jun 15, 2020

As organizations strive to become social enterprises, attributes are emerging as fundamental to their efforts. Companies with purpose embed meaning into every aspect of work, every day. Those with potential maximize what humans are capable of thinking, creating, and doing in a world increasingly defined by technology. Finally, those with perspective embrace a future focus, optimizing not only for today but also to create value for tomorrow.

Review the article on Deloitte CMO Insights.

Accelerating business strategy with data and stepping into a role as a leader

Jun 01, 2020

Review the following articles published by the Harvard Business Review (HBR) on using data and becoming a leader.

Use data to accelerate your business strategy

For sure companies are “data richer,” having exponentially more data at their disposal. But they are still “information poor”, even as leaders have implemented a wide array of programs aimed at exploiting data. Most still struggle to build data into their business strategies and, conversely, to align their data efforts to the needs of the business. There are a host of reasons, from lack of talent to unreasonable expectations to culture. Solving these problems is essential for those that wish to unleash the power of data across their organizations.

How CEOs can lead a data-driven culture?

While businesses across the world are trying to make more effective use of data, analytics, and AI, a key impediment is holding many of them back: The lack of a culture that truly values data/analytics capability and the superior decision making that can flow from it. Yet it’s possible to create a data-driven culture and accrue the competitive benefits that result.

Stepping into a leadership role? Be ready to tell your story

Stepping into a role as a leader — whether as a seasoned executive or a neophyte supervisor — is both challenging and exciting. How you handle this transition can have a huge impact on your career. You need to hit the ground running not only with your bosses and key stakeholders but also with your direct reports. Research shows that having a 90-day plan with 30-day and 60-day milestones along the way increases your chances of success. But while these plans are great tools, direct reports will evaluate who you are and what you bring to the table long before you hit those milestones. Indeed, they’ll make “sticky” evaluations of you from the very first conversation. That’s why you should have a “Day 1” plan, or what some like to call a “new-leader pitch.”

CDSB’s Climate Guidance marks the launch of application series

Oct 20, 2019

In 2020, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) released the CDSB Framework application guidance for climate-related disclosure (Climate Guidance). The release is the first in a series of guides on nature-related financial disclosure, with Water Guidance to follow early next year.

The Climate Guidance is designed to provide additional “how to” assistance to companies to disclose material climate-related information in mainstream corporate reports. The guidance complements the CDSB Framework for reporting environmental and climate change information (CDSB Framework), and aligns with other global standards, recommendations and metrics, such as the Recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures (TCFD), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), CDP, and others.

The Climate Guidance, the first one in a series of supplementary guides planned for the users of the CDSB Framework, seeks to address the gap in reporting quality by providing up-to-date guidance focused on the disclosure of material non-financial information in the mainstream report.

Review the press release and download the guidance on the CDSB's website.

Climate change risk disclosure

Feb 26, 2020

In February 2020, the Governance Institute Australia published a practical guide to reporting against ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendation.

Recommendation 7.4 of the new ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Principles encourages entities for the first time to consider and report upon any material exposure to climate change risk. This practical new guide helps you to identify and disclose your climate change risks.

Review the guide on the Governance Institute Australia's website.

Committee to chart the future of corporate governance in Canada

Oct 06, 2020

On October 6, 2020, the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) announced that the TMX and ICD launched an initiative to update corporate governance guidance in an era of profound change.

Today’s Canadian companies face a profound and expansive new set of risks, challenges and opportunities in the modern operating environment, including pandemics, climate change, the rapid emergence of advanced new technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as changing societal expectations of the role of the corporation. To help navigate these challenges now and into the future, TMX Group* and the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) have established The Committee on the Future of Corporate Governance in Canada to provide updated guidance on corporate governance. The work of the Committee comes more than 25 years since the Toronto Stock Exchange Committee on Corporate Governance (commonly known as The Dey Report) published guidelines that continue to act as the foundation for Canadian public company board governance today. That work was in response to new demands being placed on corporations in light of a series of corporate failures. Today’s demands are fundamentally different, warranting this new effort.

Review the press release and initiative on the ICD's website.

Consider data use before an incident occurs

Jan 13, 2020

On January 13, 2020, the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) released a blog on how before any board director reflexively says “breach,” they should think “incident” instead. After all, “breach” is a legal term that carries implications that could harm a company if used before being advised that an incident is, in fact, a breach.

A balance needs to be struck between easy access to and the protection of data. The nature of cyber-attacks has evolved depending on sector, but the regulatory sphere is only slowly ramping up. Directors should consider resiliency as part of any solution.

Review the full blog on the NACD's website.

COVID-19 public company audit implications: Considerations for audit committees

Jun 30, 2020

On June 30, 2020, the Cana­dian Pub­lic Ac­count­abil­ity Board (CPAB) issued a CPAB Exchange Bulletin entitled “COVID-19 public company audit implications - Considerations for audit committees”.

Noting that the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to significantly impact Canadian reporting issuers and their auditors, the CPAB believes that it is important that the quality of audits is not compromised by these challenges, and that care is taken by auditors to properly assess the accounting and disclosures made by Canadian reporting issuers.

Since audit committees play a critical role in overseeing the external audit, CPAB encourages audit committees to consider the following areas that could impact the quality of public company audits in Canada and discuss with their company management and audit teams: (i) Internal controls; (ii) Fraud; (iii) Complex/new accounting issues; (iv) People; (v) Project management; (vi) Changes to audit and review procedures; and (vii) Foreign jurisdictions audit work.

For further details, refer to the CPAB Exchange Bulletin on the CPAB’s website.

Cybersecurity threats call for a global response

Jan 13, 2020

On January 13, 2020, the International Monetary Fund Blog (IMFBlog) released a blog on how we all know that money moves quickly around the world and cybercrime is doing the same, thus, becoming increasingly and rapidly collaborative across borders.

To create a cyber-secure world, we must be as fast and globally integrated as the criminals. By developing technical and risk management standards, convening information-sharing forums, and spending considerable resources, all International bodies are creating awareness and identifying sound practices for a global perspective.

Review the full blog on the IMFBlog's website.

Davos 2020: Stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world

Feb 25, 2020

In February 2020, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released an an overview of the global media and digital media coverage throughout January of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2020.

The main story of the Annual Meeting was climate-change action to focus on tackling the urgent issue of climate change by committing to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 or earlier. This urgency was reflected in new data from the Global Risks Report 2020, which included climate threats as the top five risks since its first edition, and the Nature Risk Rising report, which found that $44 trillion of economic value generation is exposed to nature loss. There was also a focus on the sustainability and to bring together leaders of society to address the world’s most pressing challenges. This has an impact on the environment and is another way of fulfilling the mission to improve the state of the world.

Review the overview on the WEF's website.

Executives and Directors view economic conditions and technological and regulatory disruption as top risks in 2020

Jan 09, 2020

On January 9, 2020, the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) released a blog on a global survey of C-level executives and directors on macroeconomic, strategic, and operational risks highlighting the influence of the economy, talent, digital disruption, and culture on the risk landscape.

The survey, conducted by Protiviti and North Carolina State University’s Enterprise Risk Management Initiative, captures insights from 1,063 C-level executives and directors across multiple industries. These results were used to rank risk themes in order of priority to provide a context for understanding the most critical uncertainties that companies face in 2020. The top 10 risks for 2020, according to this survey, are:

  1. Impact of regulatory change and scrutiny on operational resilience, products, and services
  2. Economic conditions impacting growth
  3. Succession challenges; ability to attract and retain talent
  4. Ability to compete with “born digital” and other competitors
  5. Resistance to change operations
  6. Cyber threats
  7. Privacy and identity management and information security
  8. Organization’s culture may not encourage timely identification and escalation of risks
  9. Sustaining customer loyalty and retention
  10. Adoption of digital technologies may require new skills that are in short supply

Review the full blog on the NACD's website.

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