IIM Bangalore’s Centre for Corporate Governance and Citizenship (CCGC), in collaboration with Florida International University College of Business (FIU Business), hosted a conference on corporate governance on June 14 and 15 at its campus.
The conference provided a unique platform where academics, practitioners, corporate executives and regulators came together to understand the intricacies of corporate governance practices, regulations and their costs and benefits to various stakeholders in India and the US.
On June 14, there was an inaugural plenary session by Dr S Raghunath, Chair, Centre for Corporate Governance and Citizenship; Prof Gopal Naik, Chair, Economics and Social Sciences, IIM-B; Krishnan Dandapani, Prof of Finance and Director, Professional MBA programmes, FIU, US; Joanne Li, Dean, FIU Business, US; Matam Venkata Rao, Executive Director, Canara Bank; and G Narayanan, Chairman, Vijaya Bank.
Phenomenon of change
Prof Raghunath said, “This is an attempt to bring together an extraordinary community of scholars and practitioners whose work pertains to the niche area of the emerging challenges of corporate governance. It is the phenomenon of ‘change’ that is increasing the complexity of corporate governance. There is a trade-off between the governance system that encourages long-term focus, and one that gives importance to the short term. The tension between stability and change is embedded in the governance system.”
Prof Naik said, “We have a number of programmes at IIM-B which are making an impact on all businesses, and as socially responsible educational institution, we welcome everyone to discuss the emerging challenges of corporate governance, an essential stakeholder conversation in both profit and non-profit organisations.”
The plenary session was followed by academic sessions by professors from leading universities such as Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Florida International University, and Westminster College.
Technological changes
On June 15, industry leaders such as Samir Kumar, Managing Director, Inventus Capital; Deepak Acharya, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Wipro Limited; and Sudhir Madhugiri, Executive Partner, Gartner, participated in an industry panel on compliance, risk management in an era of automation.
Prof Raghunath said, “The future of boards is in moving away from being just compliance-centric and hindsight driven contributions to becoming value creation centric and foresight based interventions. Current board and board committees have been influenced to a major extent by regulatory demands. Technological changes are defining and shaping our globally connected economy and providing new growth opportunities for businesses.”
“Boards may have to emphasise forward-looking perspectives in the form of future focused sub-committees, instead of remaining glued to past orientation with predominant emphasis on the control and monitoring functions. Better corporate governance demands updated boardroom talent to be effective,” he added.