Board Overload

Published on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, this academic paper documents a growing asymmetry between the expanding regulatory and strategic mandates placed on boards and the structural limits of director time and attention — typically ten members meeting eight times a year. The authors argue the greatest challenge for boards today is prioritisation and triage, with regulatorily mandated oversight items crowding out core responsibilities like succession planning and AI governance. For SEA mid-market boards designing agendas and committee structures, this is a rigorous evidence base for actively defending strategic airtime against compliance creep.