National Association of Corporate Directors

Alicia, it feels good to be behind the mic since we've both been traveling so much.

First, we were down in Washington, D.C. for the NACD Summit with over 2,000 boards of directors, where we had a chat on stage with Ryan McManus and Betty DeVita.

Check out episodes 13 and 11 of the Cyber Savvy podcast if you'd like to hear more from Ryan and Betty.

But then we turned right around and we headed to Chicago for our Google Cloud CISO community event with over 80 CISOs and security experts in the room.

And I want to start with the topic of the moment, of course, which is AI and boardroom oversight of AI.

And I thought we could start by looking at a few numbers.

I recently was looking at one of the NACD's latest Q2 reports.

And in there, it says that 65% of public company directors name artificial intelligence as their absolute top agenda priority.

Reeda, as you're a board director, what AI matrix should a board see? Because for boards, this has become a very hot issue.

NACD says AI is one of the top issues for boards.

What AI matrix should a board see every quarter from your perspective?

I think it's important for us to have visibility into sort of the universe of deployment for AI, understanding how performant these models are, what's the efficacy of these models at a high level, right? Seeing how they're performing.

Previously, Shannon was CFO at Wing, which is Alphabet's drone subsidiary, and held CFO roles at Reputation.com, InsideSource, and senior financial roles at Cumulus Media.

She began her career at KPMG and Cooley LLP, a 2025 NACD directorship honoree, one of Silicon Valley's 100 most influential women.

Shannon serves on the board of Neskow Systems, SoFi Bank, Lazy Dog Restaurants, and Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and on the NASDAQ Center for Board Excellence Advisory Council.

Outside of her board and operating work, Shannon is a host of a leadership podcast, No Boxes, Just Versus, an award-winning documentary film producer, a Tony-nominated Broadway producer.

I think if I had 60 seconds, I would ask them, what is your AI strategy?

Yeah.

I actually was at the NACD conference recently, and a panelist said to me, she asked all of her boards to have a one-pager.

You should have a one-pager about your AI strategy that everybody is on board with, including the board, your operational team, and giving the pace of transition with AI, knowing that that one-pager will change.

I think lots of jobs are being replaced.

I think it's really important when I speak on panels, whether it's at NASDAQ MarketSide or at the NACD Global Forum or when people are asking me what their kids should be focused on.

I say it's really important to be a lifelong learner, and we need to continue to learn.

AI is here, and we can't bury our head in the sand.

He's phenomenal.

In that space.

So, yeah, I'm also a chair emeritus for the NACD here in Dallas.

So I helped grow that organization.

Setting aside agenda time, inviting a briefing and recording a discussion can all happen without the board ever taking a position on how AI changes the company's future.

NACD's research captures the gap precisely.

More than 62% of directors now set aside agenda time to discuss AI, yet only 23% of boards have assessed how AI disruption could affect their company's strategy.

The difference between those two numbers is the difference between attention and ownership.

You find out when the pressure is on.

Welcome to Board Vision, the official podcast of NACD, the National Association of Corporate Directors.

We share perspectives from leading corporate directors and explore what makes boards effective, including how they can help companies prepare for the future.

In this special episode, live from NACD Director's Summit 2026, Vince Brooks and Michael Montelongo talk with NACD Senior Vice President of Content, Mohamed Younis.

Together, they'll explore what effective board leadership looks like when the stakes are high.

Drawing on their experience across military, governance, and corporate leadership, they discuss how boards can prepare for crisis, make decisions with imperfect information, and build organizational resilience before it's tested.

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The National Association of Corporate Directors provides directorship certification that sets the standard for high-impact board directors.

We're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube and release new episodes on Tuesday mornings.

My guests for today's episode are Alexandra Reed Lejeu, the founding principal of Capital Expert Services, LLC, and an advisor to the National Association of Corporate Directors, NACD, and Lawrence A. Cunningham, the presiding director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, and also a director on several public company boards.

Alex and Larry have both spent decades inside the corporate governance ecosystem and have watched the actors evolve across multiple eras.

They also recently co-authored a paper titled Corporate Directorship as a Profession,

So it seems that the foundation is a bit more contested in our time, which I think is sort of the ingredients for historical change rather than just incremental change.

Well, it's interesting.

I have been affiliated with the NACD since the 80s, and I've seen it grow from 100 members to now today nearly 25,000 if we round up quite a bit.

Wow.

You recently made a presentation at the National Association of of corporate directors i believe so so how was that what did you talk about and and uh can you uh can you share a little bit with us as well

sure thank you david uh terrific conversation uh the national association of corporate directors includes you know as you would expect directors from public companies in the united states and and has a slightly broader membership base from that but but very good conversation i would say the focus uh for us there was the future of value creation And what does that look like for public companies generally? And then how does the role of the board and the board mandate need to evolve? And I would say there were three key takeaways that were important for the board or board members generally to think about.

The first is when you look relative to 2025, Investors are re underwriting public companies at a rate that's 14 X higher.

Now, that doesn't mean that somebody is deleting their old model and building a new one.

But we hear a lot about these board training programs.

We hear a lot about maybe executive recruiters, board resumes, NACD.

Let's assume you are doing your job well, right? You're positioning yourself to add value.

What 80-20, what is the 20% that really matters at the end of the day to get on the radar to the extent that you can control these things?