The role of a Non-Executive Director (NED) is to represent and safeguard the long-term interests of shareholders and broader stakeholders, including employees, customers, society, and environment. As stewards of the company, the Board and its NEDs, have two primary governance responsibilities:

• Ensuring regulatory conformance: compliance with relevant rules, regulations, accounting standards, disclosure requirements etc.
• Driving company performance: guiding management and ensuring that the company’s resources are deployed efficiently and productively.

However, continued advances in artificial intelligence, robotic process automation (RPA), and distributed ledger technology like blockchain could bring about a completely new way for the Board to exercise its responsibilities. Ensuring data veracity could be instantaneous and decentralized, allowing for processes such as reviewing company accounts, financial reporting, and auditing to be real-time and immutable, requiring minimal effort on the part of NEDs.

Read this great HBR article to find out more.