Inventing equality

This may not come as a surprise to everyone: a study produced at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School reveals that “conservative” chief executives are “significantly” less likely to credit women as lead inventors or have women in lead inventor positions.

Luca Pistilli, assistant professor at the school, says: “The implication is clear for boards and investors: leadership values are not just personal preferences; they steer recognition, resource allocation and, ultimately, innovation.

“Building awareness and stronger attribution practices can help ensure that ideas receive credit on merit.” It’s not hard, people.

 

Strictly CEOs

“For most of their careers, CEOs have answered to one person. At the top, they must satisfy many.” So goes the lament this week in the Financial Times for the difficulties faced by chief executives during their time as CEOs in the current era.

After mapping out the troubles of those in the hot seat, the article concludes: “Success now depends as much on diplomacy as decisiveness. The ability to choreograph consensus is often the most important skill a CEO can have.” This sounds very much like progress. Or, to put it another way, it sounds like CEOs may have discovered they are accountable. No bad thing.

Down under dissent

In Australia the proxy season has seen a number of companies fall foul of shareholder dissent for the climate transition plans, Minerva Analytics points out.

AGL Energy’s plan suffered a 40.5% vote against while APA Group and South32 sustained votes against of more than 20% for their climate plans. And this while dissent on climate plans at UK and European companies is falling. Climate concerns are definitely flaring up down under.

 

Nuance-free omnibus

Concerns are growing about efforts to reduce the impact of non-financial reporting on European companies. One academic now estimates that in some sectors only one in ten of the companies originally subject to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will have to comply under new proposals in the so-called “omnibus” proposal.

Andreas Rasche, a prof at Copenhagen Business School, says: “Our latest analysis shows that, under the thresholds proposed by Parliament and the Council … many sectors will see more than 90% of reporting firms excluded from CSRD.

“That is a striking shift, and a worrying one. The omnibus proposal takes a broad-brush approach cutting across the economy without distinguishing between sectors that are key to the green transition.”

Under original proposals almost 22,000 manufacturing companies would have reported using CSRD, but that’s now down to about 1,513. For wholesale and retail trade companies the figures go from 15,120 to 871.

Rasche adds: “A more nuanced, sector sensitive approach to defining the revised CSRD would have been far more effective.” A laudable call but Board Agenda is not entirely sure we could call the current era one of nuance.

Fast-changing oversight

Over in the US, professional services firm EY has discovered boards are intensifying their oversight of artificial intelligence and cyber security. No surprise when research shows that 58% of employees admit to feeding sensitive company information into large language models.

In disclosures, AI being underlined as part of risk oversight has nearly tripled since last year, and a hefty 86% of companies say cybersecurity is an area of expertise that a board director has or that the board is looking for.

EY says: “In today’s fast-changing and high-stakes digital environment, boards are elevating their oversight approach.

“Voluntary disclosures around AI and cyber are not just more common—they’re also more robust, doubling in scope across several critical areas.” We suspect there is more to come.