Boards Need a New Approach to Technology

Harvard Business Review (Sep-Oct 2024 issue, vol 102 no. 5) by Tarun Khanna, Mary C. Beckerle and Nabil Y. Sakkab argues that boards of too many publicly-traded companies are timid on science and technology, narrowing their attention to security and digitisation — a defensive posture that misses opportunities in new materials, space science and genomics. They recommend establishing a board technology committee and cite AES, Johnson & Johnson and Altria as examples where such a committee has advanced organisational interests. For SEA mid-market boards that today fold "tech" inside audit-and-risk, the case for a standing tech committee is laid out clearly.