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Canadian public companies have come a long way over the last decade. Women directors are no longer a rarity, and token female representation on the board is now the exception, with the average number of women on a board among TSX-listed companies having increased from less than one woman per board to 2.37 women per board....

At a recent bank board meeting, directors were treated to a surprise. They listened to the chief executive talk strategy—except it wasn’t actually the CEO talking. It turned out to be a voice-cloning model that was trained, using the CEO’s prior earnings calls, to generate new content. More boards are undertaking such staged exercises to better grasp the impact—and potential risks—of generative artificial intelligence, says Tariq...

For boards seeking to establish oversight of compliance with these new climate-related disclosure requirements, difficulties may arise. While the rules intended to provide transparency to investors, the burdens they impose on public companies may be significant. Additionally, companies are expressing that the concepts of materiality in these rules are somewhat ambiguous...

Organizational vision: Which of the major issues on the sustainability agenda are most important to their organizations? Where does ESG provide the greatest value? Where do their ambitions for ESG lie? Strategic focus and integration: Which stakeholders drive ESG strategy and action? What ESG goals and metrics are in place? What are the biggest obstacles to ESG?

Last August, it issued guidance to companies it invests in, calling on them to engage with AI as a way to drive profits, but to do so responsibly. A year on, companies generally need to do more, said Carine Smith Ihenacho, the fund's Chief Governance and Compliance Officer....

The surge in activity may lead to more costly battles between activist shareholders and management over leadership changes, spin-offs and outright sales in the coming months, bankers, lawyers and investors said. But uncertainty surrounding when interest rate cuts might come, geopolitical turmoil and a looming U.S. presidential election that could spell big changes in regulatory regimes, could also make corporate fights tougher...

Even with uncertainty over when government-mandated climate disclosures will be issued and what they will look like, experts say companies are still moving forward by measuring their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities. And many businesses are already proactively tracking...

The boards of too many publicly traded companies are downright timid when considering matters involving science and technology. More often than not they focus on security and digitization—a defensive posture that overlooks the bigger opportunities emerging from new materials, space science, and a better understanding of the genome, to name just a few areas...

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/03eff634-60a1-498b-9e83-c950bdf59a28?desktop=true&segmentId=7c8f09b9-9b61-4fbb-9430-9208a9e233c8#myft:notification:daily-email:content While the basic rules of society in which companies operate have been transformed beyond recognition (thanks to the impact of population growth, digitisation and climate change, to name just three factors), the roles, rights and responsibilities that accrue to owners, boards and executives have not changed....

An analysis of the boardrooms of the top 3,000 U.S. publicly traded companies known as the Russell 3000 finds that only 30.7% of 587 new board appointments in the first three months of 2024 were women, the lowest percentage since 2017....