Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein features in-depth conversations with leading voices in corporate governance, including founders, board members, executives, investors, scholars, lawyers, and other trusted advisors. Through long-form interviews, the podcast explores the people, decisions, trends, risks, and ideas shaping today’s boardrooms. Each conversation combines practical governance insights with personal experiences, leadership lessons, and the career journeys of some of the most accomplished minds in business.
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Données mises à jour le 02/10/2026
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(1:59) Collaborative Board Leadership: strengthening collaboration among directors and with management
(4:36) Moving Beyond Pattern Recognition: shrinking decision windows, comfort with ambiguity, and approaching disruption with a beginner’s mind.
(7:52) Board Focus and the Governance Gap: why more information does not necessarily produce better decisions
(11:30) Navigating AI Regulation: conflicting rules across jurisdictions, practical judgment calls, and focusing on the regulations most relevant to the business.
(13:36) Trust as a Driver of Innovation: why companies cannot wait for regulatory clarity to build trust, and how trusted technology can accelerate adoption.
(15:35) The Board as a Strategic Asset: constructive engagement with management, access to leaders across the company, and adapting committee responsibilities to emerging risks.
(18:00) Scenario Planning and The Art of the Long View: challenging the assumptions behind business plans and deciding where to lead, where to follow, and where to wait.
(19:36) Fiduciary Duties in the AI Era: why these duties remain unchanged, even as directors confront new technologies and risks.
(22:53) AI Policies for Directors: why a board’s AI policy should be tailored to directors’ responsibilities.
(23:30) Mission-Critical Risks and Oversight: revisiting risk priorities, applying an all-of-board approach to AI governance, and allocating responsibilities across committees.
(27:32) Governing the Agentic Enterprise: distinguishing augmentation, automation, and autonomy, with clear boundaries, human override, and accountability.
(31:25) AI Agents and Liability: asking where agents operate, whether their decisions are material to the business, and how responsibility is allocated when something goes wrong.
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Sabastian Niles is President and Chief Legal Officer at Salesforce.
Jackie Liu is a partner at Morrison & Foerster and serves on the board of CEVA, a Nasdaq-listed company.
(04:51) AI and Board Oversight: what directors should be asking as AI moves from experimentation into core business strategy
(05:59) Looking Beyond Today’s AI: why boards need outside perspectives on startups, venture investment, and where the technology may be heading next.
(06:58) Building Optionality: avoiding long-term technology lock-in while models, infrastructure, and token economics are changing rapidly
(07:18) AI and Cybersecurity: how AI is accelerating attacks and why boards should be conducting cyber tabletop exercises with management
(08:39) Data Governance and AI: protecting company and customer data and preventing sensitive information from being used to train outside models
(10:21) AI Regulation: why stronger and more consistent regulatory guardrails may actually help companies manage risk
(13:24) What Directors Should Ask the CIO: data architecture, AI infrastructure, controls, third-party assessments, and protecting the company’s “crown jewels”
(16:34) The AI Venture Boom (the "psychotic edge"): why investors acknowledge they may be overpaying but still fear missing the eventual winners
(18:20) Separating AI Hype from Durable Businesses: customer problems, competitive moats, proprietary data, gross margins, and sustainable unit economics
CEO Succession: What Boards Need to Get Right | Karen Francis DeGolia & Penny Herscher
(02:18) The Board’s Role in CEO Succession: why succession is about more than hiring and firing the CEO, and why boards should think about the entire executive management team
(04:57) Is the CEO You Have Today the CEO You Need Tomorrow? How rapid changes in markets, technology, and industry can change the leadership profile a company needs
(06:31) Why Succession Plans Fail: boards know succession is important, so why are so many still unprepared?
(07:54) Succession as an Ongoing Process: why the conversation should begin on the first day of a CEO’s tenure
(09:23) The Emotion of CEO Succession: ego, fear, trust, and why succession can become one of the most difficult conversations between a board and a CEO
(11:14) Who Owns CEO Succession? The role of the board chair, Nom/Gov Committee, Comp Committee, and other board leaders
(13:24) Developing Internal Candidates: how directors can build relationships with senior executives and assess whether they could realistically become CEO
(14:57) The P&L Test: if operating experience is essential for the next CEO, boards need to create those development opportunities years in advance
(17:53) Private Equity and CEO Succession: the influence of investment horizons, exit expectations, and the private equity sponsor
(19:24) Family-Owned Companies: long-term ownership, outside CEOs, independent boards, and succession across generations
(20:41) Venture-Backed Companies: what happens when investors have backed the founder but the founder may no longer be the right CEO to scale the company
(22:47) the limits of board influence when founders retain voting control
Raffaela Rein: How AI Is Changing the Way Boards Work
(49:03) Boards in a Fractured World "[W]e now need to have engaged board members, board members who are curious, who read, who stay up to speed on things, who keep asking more questions. You cannot have directors who are just calling it in anymore."
(53:31) Government as Shareholder
Karen Francis DeGolia is a board member at Vontier, CelLink, and NAUTO. is a board member at Lumentum, Penguin Solutions, Forvia SA, and Modern Health.
(29:57) Founder Control, Dual-Class Shares, and Investor Power: the shifting balance among founders, boards, management, and institutional investors. Reference to Stripe's Investor Letter from August 2026 “the Singularity started on 1/1/26”
(30:50) Public and Private Markets Converging: SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Stripe, and new approaches to ownership and governance. *Reference to E210 with Eric Ries.
(35:20) Global Governance: Japan, the U.K., the U.S., and how shareholder engagement differs across markets. *Reference to E221 with Stavros Gadinis.
(38:40) Y Combinator, OpenAI credits, and why Pennant remains model-agnostic
(39:39) Choosing AI Models for Governance: why different models perform better at different governance tasks
(43:33) Pennant after YC Demo Day: new investors, enterprise clients, and plans to grow the company
(45:12) What Ryan wants directors to understand about AI, shareholder engagement, and why technology can create more time for meaningful investor conversations
Mobilize by Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar and Madeline Hart (2026)
(48:46) His mentors: Stephanie Creary and Abe Friedman (reference to E43 with Abe from 2021)
(50:44) A quote Ryan thinks of often: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”
(51:37) An unusual habit: Settlers of Catan. An unusual passion: the Australian Baseball League
(53:11) The living person he most admires: Angela Merkel, and lessons from her patient, evidence-driven approach to leadership
(54:42) Where to find Pennant AI and follow Ryan’s work
Ryan Nowicki Stewart is the co-founder and CEO of Pennant AI, a Y Combinator-backed governance technology company building AI-powered tools for institutional investors, public companies, and advisors.
Stavros Gadinis is the George R. Johnson Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Business at UC Berkeley School of Law
(19:50) Global AI Competition: U.S., Chinese, European, and Japanese models and the importance of avoiding dependence on any single provider
(23:11) AI and the Workforce: how AI is changing engineering, sales, marketing, and other functions inside companies
(24:40) Headcount Dollars vs. Token Dollars: how companies are reallocating budgets as AI becomes part of everyday operations
(26:15) Citizen Development: why AI is democratizing software development and allowing business users to build their own tools and agents
(28:48) How Boards Should Think About AI Budgets: experimentation, large strategic bets, acquisitions, and holding management accountable to the original business case. "The sure path to death is to not do AI"
(32:39) Recommendation to boards: "[W]hen you think about AI, think about not necessarily your straight ROI case or your cost case. Think about what am I trying to achieve in the next six to 12 months? And that's literally as far as you can see, and it's probably closer to six." When to Shut Down AI Projects: why boards need discipline around stopping experiments that are not producing results.
(33:30) Beyond Productivity: moving from cost savings and efficiency to true value realization through faster decisions, autonomy, and new business opportunities
Ivonne Wassenaaris a technology executive, advisor, and experienced board director whose career spans software, strategy consulting, and CEO roles. She currently serves on boards across public, private equity, and venture-backed companies.
Alla Whitston is CIO for MUFG Americas and brings more than three decades of experience leading technology in the financial services industry.
(24:56) Shareholder Activism: why activists often target CEO performance through the board and how directors should assess their own vulnerabilities
(28:00) AI and the Next Generation of CEOs: why intellectual curiosity, adaptability, and the willingness to learn may matter more than claiming to be an AI expert
(30:06) How AI, geopolitics, and accelerating change are reshaping the qualities boards should look for in CEOs
Karen Francis DeGolia is a board member at Vontier, CelLink, and NAUTO. Penny Herscher is a board member at Lumentum, Penguin Solutions, Forvia SA, and Modern Health.
This conversation was recorded at the inaugural Boardroom Governance Summit in Healdsburg, California, on August 26–27, 2026.
(26:37) The “private equitization” of the economy and the rise of private-company boards
(31:38) OpenAI, Anthropic, and New Governance Models: PBCs, nonprofits, trusts, and mission-driven governance
(35:15) The Sam Altman episode and the unusual balance of power among boards, employees, and investors
(36:34) Mission vs. Financial Interests in AI governance
(37:47) Founder Control and Dual-Class Shares: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and investor willingness to accept unconventional governance
(39:17) The Porsche IPO and other unconventional governance structures
(41:07) U.S. vs. German Boards: comparing the single-board and two-tier governance models
(44:00) Why the board meeting should be one of the most valuable meetings in the company, not simply a reporting exercise
(44:40) Why Raffaela believes the AI transformation may be bigger than the digital transformation
(45:36) AI Strategy and Governance education for directors
(46:00) Building a Directors Council to think about the future of board work in an AI-driven world
(47:44) Autonomous vehicles, disruption of the German and European auto industries, and global competition
(48:15) What happens if AI makes many goods and services dramatically cheaper, or even effectively free?
(49:04) Books that have greatly influenced her life:
Radical Candor, by Kim Scott
Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss
The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz
(51:13) Her mentors and the people she admires for perseverance
(52:12) Quotes she thinks of often: Invictus and “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
(52:54) An unusual habit: going through different color phases
(53:56) The living person she most admires: Tony Robbins, and his ability to sustain a sense of purpose over decades
Raffaela Rein is the CEO and founder of BoardLens, an AI-powered intelligence platform built for board members. Her career spans BlackRock, Rocket Internet, entrepreneurship, and corporate boards.
Shannon Nash is a qualified financial expert, attorney, and CPA with over 30 years at the intersection of technology, finance, and governance. She serves as a board member in both public and private companies.
(55:52) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by.
(57:09) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves.
(58:05) The living person she most admires in governance: Christine Lagarde.
Sandra Gobert is the Executive Director of GUBERNA. Sandra also serves as an independent director of Fluxys Belgium, sits on the board of ecoDa, the European Confederation of Directors Associations, and is a member of the board of Belgium’s Corporate Governance Committee.
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