Board Matters Teams up with Nasdaq, Expanding Access to Governance Tools

As boards continue to adapt to the changes in the way we work as a result of the pandemic, Australian governance advisory firm Board Matters has partnered with Nasdaq Governance Solutions to provide board and management evaluations, as well as assessment tools, including the award-winning board portal Nasdaq Boardvantage®, to organisations in Australia and New Zealand.

Robertson noted that this suite of tools, particularly the evaluation tools, is used by many Fortune 500 companies. “Australia now has the benefit of being able to use these processes and have excellent governance advisory services to support them in creating governance improvement and measuring that for the future,” she continued.

Governance technology aims to increase efficiencies and bolster collaboration for boards of directors, corporate secretaries, and leadership teams. Nasdaq Boardvantage has been designed with an intuitive interface and multiple layers of security to help board members and leadership teams elevate their governance and easily access meeting information.

“Boards are also starting to see the advantages that come with better technology platforms providing reliable data, including real-time data,” Robertson added. “This means that information can be reported and made available to the board [more quickly, and that data] is more current, dependable and can be relied upon with confidence. In a world that has a lot of uncertainties, having confidence in the organisation’s data can help a board make better decisions.”

Access to these solutions comes at a critical time as remote meetings and the reliance on secure board portal platforms have been a key priorities for directors during the pandemic. Through the adoption of such technologies, boards are also able to continue with their governance role in a way that ensures the health and safety of people within the organisation.

“The pandemic showed us that virtual meetings and a productive workforce that can work from home give directors and management teams the ability to think and plan for a future that might not have otherwise been available in such a short period of time,” said Robertson. “The focus now is how to see these changes from an organisational and leadership level create a future that takes the best of this flexibility and opens up opportunities and possibilities to generate value.”

With these technologies, Robertson suggested that there may be cost savings opportunities in terms of commercial leasing arrangements and less-frequent business travel, as well as management being more open to people working from rural and remote settings and to differently-abled staff who may only be able to work from home.

The ability to reach a more diverse workforce has become increasingly important as regulators and Royal Commissions now identify culture as an integral part of governance and organisational failure and, more crucially, recognize that boards play a significant role in shaping and monitoring organisational culture.

Board Matters recognizes that “governance is a discipline comprised of many complex and interconnected moving parts” and believes that “boards should add energy to their organisations, not suck the life out of them,” according to Robertson. The firm’s Board Energy Generator Framework looks at not only matters associated with structure and process, but also the intangible part of the board’s contribution to any organisation, including input in and the monitoring of culture.

 “We have an opportunity to show boards the key role they can play in advancing greater participation in the economy at every level,” said Robertson.

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