As lockdown draws to an end in the UK, you might be thinking of a return to in-person Board meetings. Before you make this decision, ask yourself: is this what’s best for the company?

Virtual meetings have been an invaluable tool during the pandemic and we should think twice before abandoning them. Don’t get stuck in old ways of thinking, just for the sake of it! In fact, this is the perfect time to move forward into the future.

‘It is important that organisations do their due diligence.’ This is a phrase everyone has heard said at some point. It may even be a phrase you have said. But, what does it mean exactly? 

Your Board members lead jam-packed lives and only have time for the most pressing and serious issues when they meet. This is why an executive committee is needed to meet and tackle the high-level issues, either in emergencies or on a day-to-day basis. The executive committee is an elected, elite group of directors that are able to meet and make decisions at short notice. The executive committee is made up of the C-Suite of the board as well as other executive managers that may not be regularly at board meetings. 

Every company has a management team to make sure things run according to plan. Public companies must have a Board of directors which is led by a Chairman. Most companies also have a Chief Executive Officer (or CEO). In many cases, both roles are performed by the same person, but the duties of these different titles vary.

The difference between the Chairman and the CEO role can be summed up briefly as: the CEO runs the company, while the Chairman evaluates the company’s performance.

However, there are more key differences between these roles and what they bring to an organisation.

We talk a lot about the board of directors here at Convene. We are a board portal solution, after all. But you know as well as we do that a board’s decision would be futile without the senior leadership team. 

All companies have stakeholders - and most have shareholders. Despite how central these terms are to business, many of us don’t actually know what they mean. Shareholder and stakeholder have very different definitions that impact everyone in the world.

Board portals are a great tool for facilitating meetings, and they also serve as repositories for documents, past meetings, and meeting minutes. Keeping records of past meetings is best practice for any organisation. But why would you keep records, what meetings should you keep a record of and how should these records be managed?

Virtual Board meetings can solve many of the problems your Board encounters. With new technology, your team members no longer have to be in the same room to have important discussions.

Audit trails are vital in discovering and understanding what went wrong when a company or organisation suffers a security breach, data loss or misconduct. Having a detailed log of who accessed what and when, can make the search for what went wrong quick and easy. But, as this blog will discuss, there are more benefits to keeping audit trails than being prepared for when something goes wrong!

Now more than ever, diversity and accessibility are the key to productive Board meetings. You want to get the most from your employees, and they want the most from you. Inclusive software is at the very centre of this relationship.

Despite a Covid vaccine programme being rolled out in the UK, new strains and an increase in cases has led to another national lockdown, pushing back any return to normality even further. Given this, it’s a good idea to make plans for a virtual Annual General Meeting in 2021 for 3 key reasons:

At the recent ICSA ‘Governance Beyond the Pandemic’ conference, we were delighted to sponsor the fascinating breakout session, ‘ESG: A new dawn’ with Kate Larsen, Susan Hooper, Daniel Neale, Leon Kamhi and Andrew Wallis. The panel discussed how ESG plays a part in the success of businesses as they move beyond the pandemic and through what is looking like a prolonged recession.

There are always two kinds of meetings in any organisation. The structured variety which form part of a compliant decision- making process and the collaborative sort, designed to promote free flowing conversations, with conclusions being arrived at by virtue of collective discussion. Microsoft and Slack are both designed for people who want to engage with others on a collaborative platform. You can view this type of team collaboration software while you are online with the majority of devices, for example, mobile phone, laptop or tablet.

Last Friday, when most of us in Europe were more concerned about beating the heatwave, American owned Diligent bought Germany’s Brainloop.

On the 14^th of June, we attended the National Housing Federation Governance Conference to exhibit our digital platform and board meeting app. This year's conference was all about getting a fresh perspective on leaner governance and more efficient housing associations, which meant that digitalisation was a key topic of discussion amongst the delegates.