Continuous governance in the AI age: Elevate Leadership Summit 2026 recap

Is it time to rewire board governance?

In April 2026, Diligent Institute convened the Elevate Leadership Summit to explore how boards and senior executives can lead effectively in an era defined by rapid technological change and geopolitical turmoil. The Summit brought together directors, C-suite leaders, and governance experts for a day of plenary sessions, breakouts, and roundtable conversations focused on M&A strategy, executive and board succession, executive compensation, AI strategy and governance, and board culture and leadership.

While sessions tackled distinct topics, several themes cut across the day: the centrality of people and culture, the need for continuous (rather than episodic) governance, and the imperative for boards to build fluency around AI and risk oversight.

Please note that all Elevate Leadership Summit sessions were held under Chatham House Rule, meaning that no individual attendees or speakers are directly quoted. Direct quotes in this paper were obtained in on-the-record discussions following the event.

"Continuous governance means accepting three uncomfortable facts: every company is a technology company, every board is now a succession board, and every director is now a geopolitical actor. The integration of those three — contextual intelligence — is the work. Treating them as separate agenda items is the dominant boardroom failure mode."

— Joe Hurd, CEO of The Katama Group, Partner of Alpha, Independent Director on the boards of Lloyd’s, Hays, and Trust Pilot

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Future-proofing M&A strategy

People, culture and preparedness

Panelists began with a frank assessment: many first-time or infrequent acquirers fail because they are unprepared, not just in deal mechanics but in integration discipline and culture management. Boards often underestimate how much M&A risk they truly own and over-index on spreadsheets at the expense of people and systems.

Key messages:

• People and culture drive outcomes. In most deals, it is people risk (not strategy) that ultimately destroys value. As Peter Drucker famously said, "culture eats strategy for breakfast," and that holds true when boards neglect how ways of working, decision rights, and leadership styles will mesh once the deal closes.
• M&A is a learnable capability. High-performing acquirers treat M&A as a repeating skill: they build playbooks, conduct honest post-mortem reviews, and track integration performance over time.
• Information flow is critical. Directors need greater direct exposure to the target organization — leaders beyond the top team, operations, and systems — rather than being managed toward a pre-determined "yes."

"Boards of companies with successful, repeatable M&A playbooks understand that integrating key personnel — often at two or three levels below the C-suite — and optimizing cultural alignment are two of the keys to long term M&A value creation."

— Brian Kushner, Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting and Board Member at Resideo Technologies and Gibson, Inc."

Regulatory and geopolitical headwinds

Speakers stressed that the regulatory environment is now often the binding constraint on deals. Antitrust and cross-border reviews are more complex and geopolitical dynamics can upend once-routine transactions.

Boards were urged to:

• Engage early with governments and regulators, especially on large or cross-border deals, to surface issues before they harden into obstacles.
• Treat pandemics, cyber, supply-chain fragility, and regional tensions as "grey rhino" risks that are visible, material, and require proactive scenario planning.
• Look for opportunity as well as risk, including new partnerships, markets, and collaborations that become possible when others are deterred.

Board practices that improve M&A oversight

Higher-performing boards:

• Clarify the deal thesis and success metrics up front, then use them as a "north star" to test decisions and pivots.
• Guard against "deal fever." They are explicit about conditions under which they will walk away, even late in a process.
• Link M&A to the broader risk and strategy agenda, recognizing that each deal reshapes the company’s exposure to AI, cyber, supply-chain, and talent risks.

The overarching insight: no acquisition will go exactly as planned. Effective oversight does not remove risk; it makes risk explicit, priced, and continuously managed.

Executive succession and board leadership in the AI age

CEO succession as a routine discipline

Despite elevated CEO turnover, many boards still treat succession as a periodic exercise rather than a continuous process.

Common pitfalls include:

• Equating a list with a plan. A list of potential successors is not a succession plan; it says little about development, testing, or readiness.
• Incumbent gravity. Boards may avoid hard conversations when CEOs control the timing, framing, and depth of succession discussions.
• Treating succession planning as an annual check-the-box activity. Discussing succession once or twice a year is insufficient in a volatile environment.

Better practice is to treat succession as an every-meeting topic: What has changed in the pipeline since we last met? Who is being stretched or tested? Where are our gaps?

"When succession planning is consistently addressed by the board it becomes a part of the culture and the fabric of the organization. When succession is only addressed when there is a crisis or when the CEO is not performing, it may create horse races and become a deep distraction for the organization."

— Ana Dutra, Independent Director, Pembina Pipeline and CarParts.com

Designing for the future role

Boards were encouraged to start with the future context, then define the role:

• Use scenario planning (AI adoption, digital disruption, regulatory shifts, possible crises) to clarify what the organization will need in the next chapter.
• Prioritize learning agility and AI fluency alongside experience; prior roles matter less in a world where business models and technologies are rapidly changing.
• Prepare for unplanned departures with clear interim plans, delegated authorities, and communication strategies.

Succession planning should work backward from a well-articulated future role, not forward from a list of familiar names.

Board composition and leadership succession in the boardroom

Succession in the boardroom raises parallel questions:

• Defaulting to ex-CEO/CFO profiles narrows diversity at the very moment boards need new perspectives on technology, AI, and risk.
• A single "AI expert" is not enough; boards need the full board to be fluent in AI conversations, supported by structured education.
• Many AI- and digital-fluent candidates are younger, first-time directors. Welcoming them requires intentional onboarding and a culture that encourages their voices.

Boards can use skills matrices, planned refreshment, and candid one-on-ones to align composition with future needs and create space for new talent.

"AI fluency now belongs on every executive and CEO succession profile right alongside the traditional readiness competencies boards have always valued.

The fundamentals of leadership and judgment still matter; we just need to layer in AI stretch assignments and targeted leadership courses so key candidates can lead confidently in a business where AI touches everything. And succession itself can’t be an annual check-the-box exercise anymore. It needs to be a frequent, candid boardroom conversation about who’s being tested, where the gaps are, and how the pipeline is evolving.

Our nomination and governance committees are well-positioned to lead this shift, and the time to act is now. The committees that move first to build AI fluency into readiness profiles and make succession a continuous discussion will set their boards and executives up to succeed in the years ahead."

— Mary Lee Sharp, Founder and Board Advisor, People First Advisors

Human factors and authentic leadership

Speakers noted that most failed executive transitions stem from human factors like culture misalignment, poor assimilation, or unclear decision norms rather than technical gaps. The same is true for director transitions.

Effective boards:

• Set explicit learning agendas for new leaders: What they must learn, from whom, and by when.
• Attend to boardroom culture and trust: Knowing colleagues beyond their titles, making it safer to challenge and be challenged.
• Recognize presence as the deepest leadership skill: being fully in the conversation rather than preparing for the next intervention.

Authentic leadership in the boardroom

The Summit’s authentic leadership session underscored that presence matters more than performance theater; that directors should stay grounded in their intrinsic worth rather than constant proof-seeking; and that crises can unify organizations when leaders respond with curiosity: "Help me understand" instead of defensiveness.

Taken together, the message was that succession and leadership at both executive and board levels are people systems, not paperwork — and AI and disruption only raise the bar.

"As risks become more complex and their consequences more far-reaching, a board’s ability to leverage the collective experience around the table is no longer a differentiator — it is a critical success factor. That requires trust, presence, and integrity not as aspirational qualities but as the baseline for effective governance. And as the gap between those who benefit from growth and those left behind continues to widen, boards must ask harder questions about who their true stakeholders are and what value creation actually means — and for whom."

— Kathryn Henry, Independent Director and Audit and Compensation Committee Member, lululemon

Pay, performance, and a fragmenting proxy landscape

Core challenges for compensation committees

Speakers highlighted three pressing challenges: First, goal-setting under uncertainty. Business plans are more volatile and non-linear, complicating the calibration of performance curves and payout ranges. Second, sustaining pay-for-performance alignment. Investors scrutinize above-target payouts when shareholder returns are flat or negative, focusing on realized pay relative to performance and peers. Third, retaining scarce talent. Competition for executives in supply chain, operations, and digital/technology remains intense, and "make-whole" practices can blunt traditional retention tools.

Design and disclosure trends

Observed trends include:

• Continued reliance on profit and revenue as primary annual bonus metrics, augmented by strategic goals tied to key non-financial priorities.
• Ongoing dominance of TSR in long-term incentives, sometimes as a modifier rather than a weighted metric, and continued use of multi-vehicle LTI structures, most often performance-based and time-based full value shares.
• Movement toward simpler, more materiality-based disclosures, with possibility of elimination and/or simplification of certain disclosures, like CEO pay ratio and pay versus performance.

Navigating proxy advisors and investors

The proxy environment is less centralized and more fragmented:

• ISS and Glass Lewis may diverge from each other and from large institutional investors, creating multiple external benchmarks.
• Negative proxy advisor recommendations can still significantly depress say-on-pay outcomes, particularly where there is perceived pay-for-performance misalignment or large one-time awards. However, their influence continues to face downward pressure as large investors start to formally adopt or develop their own policies.
• Some major investors are building their own voting frameworks, reducing reliance on advisors and increasing the need for direct engagement.

For boards, success on pay is now defined less by any single gatekeeper and more by maintaining trust across a diverse investor base.

"Overall, the executive compensation environment remains as complex and uncertain as ever. Companies are primarily focusing on ensuring alignment between pay outcomes and performance within the context of an ever-changing and fluid environment. We expect substantial governance and disclosure changes in the coming 1-2 years, making compensation decisions and resulting implications even more uncertain."

— Jim Kzirian, Partner, Meridian Compensation Partners

AI strategy and board governance

AI as a nascent force

Speakers characterized AI as “still wet cement”: its use cases, norms, and controls are still being formed. When it comes to AI deployment, even advanced organizations often describe themselves as “crawling” or “walking,” not yet “running.”

Key points:

• There are few comprehensive AI “experts.” Most people are still learning, which creates space and obligation for boards to engage.
• AI is a horizontal capability that affects P&L, customer experience, operations, risk and ethics simultaneously.
• Boards cannot govern what they do not understand, making baseline AI literacy a collective responsibility.

"While AI is still wet cement, the decisions boards and management make right now will define their company’s relevance for a decade. AI strategy is mission critical — and it demands every clock run in sync. Capital, talent, social license, and market position: any one out of rhythm, and the risk isn’t just falling behind — it’s becoming irrelevant."

— Roosevelt Giles, President & Chairman, Endpoint Consulting Group, Independent Director, JUST Capital

From pilots to scaled frameworks

Patterns among more mature adopters include:

• Starting with narrow, well-governed pilots, designed with privacy and legal skeptics at the table from day one.
• Building a common AI framework and technology foundation so multiple business units can innovate on a shared platform.
• Emphasizing augmentation over automation, keeping "humans in the loop" for high-stakes decisions.

Fiduciary duty and oversight

AI now sits squarely within board fiduciary obligations:

• Boards must ask "Why?" (why this use case, now, with this data) and "How do you know?" (how strong is the evidence, data quality, and control environment).
• Effective oversight depends on risk ranking, clear roles, and audit trails so decisions can be explained if challenged.
• Some boards are re-scoping committees (e.g., technology/innovation/cyber) and clarifying the remit of emerging roles like the Chief AI Officer.

Stakeholders, skills, and succession

AI governance intersects directly with stakeholder trust and talent:

• Over-reliance on AI risks the atrophy of important skills and the erosion of cognitive diversity in decision-making.
• Boards should apply a multi-stakeholder lens: How AI affects employees, customers, and communities, not just cost or speed.
• AI expertise and fluency should increasingly feature in CEO and leadership succession profiles, as well as in board recruitment and education.

The central insight: AI strategy is not a “tech” issue alone. It is a governance, talent, ethical and business model issue.

"AI governance is not a future-facing topic, it is a present-day board responsibility. Earning trust and creating value means moving past experimentation into disciplined oversight: why does this use case matter, how does the data support it, where are the risks, and who is accountable? Board members do not need to be AI engineers. They need to be fluent enough to ask the right questions."

— Jean Harvey-Johnson, VP of AI Enablement & Process Optimization, Fiserv

Geopolitics and the board agenda

From “black swans” to “grey rhinos”

Geopolitics appeared throughout the Summit as both a risk multiplier and a strategic variable. Rather than rare “black swans,” speakers framed many geopolitical risks as “grey rhinos,” which are large, visible, and insufficiently addressed.

Examples included:

• Regional conflicts and great-power competition affecting trade routes, commodities, and employee safety.
• Sanctions, export controls, and investment-screening regimes reshaping where and how firms can operate.
• A capital-intensive data center boom that carries regulatory, energy, and national-security sensitivities.

Integrating geopolitics into strategy and risk

Boards were encouraged to move beyond high-level briefings and ask how geopolitical dynamics intersect with:

• Footprint and supply chains where operations, suppliers, and customers are exposed.
• Talent and technology, including cross-border data flows and AI regulation.
• Capital allocation and M&A: How deals and investments alter geopolitical risk profiles and government relationships.

Practical steps include:

• Making scenario planning (across people safety, facilities, and suppliers) a regular feature of risk discussions.
• Deepening risk and cyber expertise on the board to interpret complex, multi-jurisdictional threats.
• Proactively engaging governments and regulators as partners on major moves, not just obstacles.

Making geopolitics a standing agenda item

Participants stressed that geopolitics must move from an annual slide to a standing part of the board conversation, woven into:

• Strategy and long-term bets.
• M&A choices and integration plans.
• Supply-chain resilience design.
• AI, data, and infrastructure decisions.

In short, geopolitics is now a core dimension of strategy, not an external backdrop.

Looking to the future

Across the Summit, several through-lines emerged:

• People and culture sit at the heart of governance: from M&A to AI to pay and succession, outcomes hinge on how boards understand, support, and challenge people systems.
• Boards are being asked to move from episodic oversight to continuous governance, especially on succession, AI, education, scenario planning, and geopolitics.
• Effective governance in this era demands learning and courage to acknowledge blind spots, invest in new capabilities, and make uncomfortable decisions when needed.

To act on the Summit’s insights, boards and senior leaders might:

1. Elevate succession, AI, and geopolitics as standing agenda items, with clear owners and follow-through at every meeting.
2. Refresh board composition using a future-focused, AI-aware, geopolitically literate skills matrix that makes room for new voices.
3. Strengthen M&A oversight by insisting on clear theses, integrating regulatory/geopolitical analysis, and conducting structured post-deal reviews.
4. Sharpen compensation narratives, aligning design, outcomes, and disclosure to withstand multiple external lenses.
5. Build an enterprise AI governance framework, clarifying roles, risk ranking, pilot criteria, and audit trails.
6. Invest deliberately in board culture and learning, including authentic leadership, presence, and ongoing education on AI, risk, and geopolitics.

"The Elevate Leadership Summit underscored that while the environment is unprecedented, the best qualities of the board — curiosity, courage, discipline, and a commitment to continuous learning — remain powerful... The challenge now is to apply them with renewed focus to the intertwined questions of M&A, AI, geopolitics, talent, and culture that define the future of corporate governance."

— Dottie Schindlinger, Executive Director of the Diligent Institute

The Elevate Leadership Summit was sponsored by Meridian Compensation Partners and FTI Consulting.

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