Corporate Governance

Shearman & Sterling LLP 10 | Governance Amid Crisis – How 2020 Changed the Boardroom throughout the organization. The board should be engaged in ensuring management determines whether there are racial and gender barriers in how the company finds, develops, compensates and promotes its talent. The board should also direct management to evaluate its supplier employees back to work safely are inevitable. Community engagement and responsibility will also loom large as communities across the United States come to terms with the economic and human damage wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Every company was forced to react to these of corporate America. It became critically important for a company to engage with its employees, customers and community and state what it was committed to do to further the change demanded by calls for social justice reform. This was a new type of crisis for many companies. It did not relate to something triggered by a company event — there was not a problem with a product or an issue of executive misconduct. The board and management were forced to be a voice Review diversity policies across the organization. The importance of a clear and focused statement on board diversity has long been on the agenda of boards. The board should now be focused on how diversity and inclusion are being addressed The COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous impact on working Americans, which will be fresh in the minds of investors and advocates. Questions about the health and safety of employees, severance policies, work-at-home practices and actions to get Management and boards have been faced with the pressing and important decision of what the company should say about what is happening in the country at this very moment. It became clear very quickly that it was not going to be enough for a company to sit back and not express a view. Employees, customers and communities were demanding to hear from the executive suites and boardrooms and service provider network to see what can be done to promote diversity objectives. The board should be aware of the concerns and expectations of its employees, customers and the communities in which the company engages. challenges, but it will be important to weave those responses into a narrative about what the company has done, as well as its sense of purpose in the community and how it plans to build on the lessons of these events going forward. in the public debate in a new and very open way. It became clear that companies would be evaluated not only on the content of what they said, but also whether it rang true. The message had to connect to the relevant stakeholders, but also be considered authentic. Boards should evaluate how they handled the initial stages of this crisis. They should consider what skills are needed on boards and from advisors for this type of crisis going forward. Diversity Human Capital and Community Impact

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