Boardroom&Beyond Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Rosa Zeegers, Partner of Newport LLC, a Marketing & Branding Strategist and Transformational Global Business Executive. Rosa had successfully led global Fortune 500 brands and businesses in various industries, ranging from Consumer Goods (Unilever), to Airlines (KLM Royal Dutch Airlines), Toys & Entertainment (Mattel), Retail (Justice) and Publishing, Events & Entertainment (National Geographic), to new growth levels.

Their conversation of this episode is about Branding Strategy and how some world-class companies transform ESG integration into business branding opportunities…

Conversation Topics with timestamps:

Consumer / Create needs for consumer / making money out of it

• Rosa’s experiences - “Must-Listen” companies’ marketing & branding stories (2:00)

(Unilever, Barbie, National Geographic ……)

• Transaction ready consulting roles with family business focus (12:00)

• Corporate Branding vs. Consumer Branding (15:00)

• Rosa’s 4-step Branding strategy Recipe (20:00)

• Is ESG integration a motivation for companies to modify their Branding strategy? How? (26:00)

• Are companies make ESG integration for reputation risk mitigation? Or new business opportunities? (31:00)

• How will the young generations influence business Branding strategy? (35:00)

• How do companies translate ESG implementation to a successful Branding strategy? (40:00)

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Dr. Fabio Oliveira. Dr. Oliveira has more than 14 years as an academic. He teaches management, digital technologies, marketing, digital transformation, and business strategy for MBA and Master students in Business School Sao Paulo, Fundacao Armando Alvares Penteado, University of Hertfordshire, University of Ulster, London Metropolitan University, University of Solent and Henley Business School. Dr. Oliveira is a certified instructor of Artificial Intelligence of the Huawei ICT Academy at Henley Business School. He is the author of academic papers and a contributor to book chapters. 

Their conversation of this episode is about Dr. Oliveira’s opinions on the impact of digital transformation to boardroom and board members, based on his research findings.

Conversation Topics with timestamps:

• Fabio’s experience teaching at Huawei ICT Academy at Reading University (6:00)

• The most notable changes in the boardroom (corporate governance mechanism) due to digital technology transformation accelerated by the pandemic? (9:00)

• The top opportunities digital technology brought to corporate board and the board directors? How board directors can embrace these opportunities? (18:00)

• The top challenges for board directors to make the digital transformation? Any good roadmap, or good practice from Fabio’s research interview? (24:00)

• The evolving of board stewardship and management roles in the future – how to draw the line between board and management? (30:00)

• With the influence in boardroom from younger generation investors and board directors who are tech savvy, what kind of further impact from digital technology to board governance? (36:00)

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Fedor Heijl, Chair of Vistage in Netherland. Board Chair of TechnoParts B.V.. and a family business trusted advisor.

This is the second part of Lyndsey and Fedor’s conversation. Topics of this episode are focused on the new governance model of family-owned business.

Conversation with Fedor Heijl Highlights

Vistage and Fedor’s role as Vistage Chair
o Passion of coaching and mentoring next generation (2:00)
o Value creation environment (6:00)

How does the Vistage advisory group operate and help members?
o Diversity of the advisory group (7:00)
o Case study (7:40)

Fedor’s passion of helping others?
o Passion of helping others (9:00)

Vistage Netherland
o Netherland culture plays in business (10:00)
o Stakeholder consideration in Netherland companies (11:00)
o Think global, act local! (18:00)

Family business mindset (12:30)

Three takeaway advice for family Business mindset (13:30)

Guest Contact Information

1. Contact info:
   Fedor Heijl MSc.
   fedor@fvice.nl
   linkedin.com/in/fedorheijl
   +31 6 55 13 80 79
2. Websites:
   www.fvice.nl
   www.vistage.nl
   www.vistage.com

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Fedor Heijl, Chair of Vistage in Netherland. Board Chair of TechnoParts B.V.. and a family business trusted advisor.

Their conversation of this episode is regarding the company culture of family-owned business.

Conversation with Fedor Heijl Highlights

The beauty of Netherland and Netherland culture
o Netherland with diverse culture (4:00)
o World-class R&D center (5:30)

Key reasons of Netherland family-owned company’s success
o Family controlled public listed companies (7:30)
o Small family-owned business focus on long-term value (8:00)
o Simply organization structure make decision making process efficient (8:40)

Fedor’s family-owned business structure?
o Brief intro (10:00)
o Governing and managing structure (11:00)
o Treat employees as partners (12:30)

Top challenges growing family business
o Long-term growth with employees and customers in mind (13:15)
o Biggest challenge is the lifecycle of the business (14:30)
o Opportunity for the business (15:00)
o Pros and Cons for next steps of the business (16:00)
o Think global, act local! (18:00)

Guest Contact Information

1. Contact info:
   Fedor Heijl MSc.
   fedor@fvice.nl
   linkedin.com/in/fedorheijl
   +31 6 55 13 80 79
2. Websites:
   www.fvice.nl
   www.vistage.nl
   www.vistage.com

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Marie-Josée Privyk, Head of ESG Innovation and Customer Success at Novisto Inc.. Marie-Josee is an extensive ESG Advisor to companies and investors with nearly 30 years of experience in capital markets.

Their conversation of this episode focuses on various topics on today’s ESG reporting and compliance standards, challenges for companies, and directions for future regulatory development and ESG reporting trends.

Conversation Highlights

Overall landscape of sustainable reporting today

• Fast growing and increasingly changing ESG reporting and compliance (6:00)
• Difference between Sustainable Reporting and ESG Reporting (9:40)

The top challenges for corporates for sustainability reporting

• Challenges on “What”  (11:20)
• Challenges on “How” (13:20)
• Challenges on “Improvement” (14:20)

Reporting Frameworks and Standards

• Two Main Standards (GRI and SASB) and their different focus (15:15)
• Frameworks - TCFD, a high level framework could apply to any sustainability (17:10)
• Frameworks - Integrated reporting framework – requires integrated thinking (18:00)

ESG reporting standards for corporate and for investors

• Parallel reporting standard but related (19:30)
• PRI Signatories for investors – more pressure on investor increase pressure to companies (20:20)

Why should companies improve ESG performance and reporting?

• Operating, risk mitigation, Lower cost of capital, enterprise value creation (23:00)
• ESG reporting pressure to private-owned or family-owned companies (25:00)
• Pressure from other stakeholders for companies’ ESG performance (26:20)

The direction of companies’ sustainable (ESG) reporting journey

• Fast-pace evolving, increasing clarity, increasing regulation (29:20)
• Company’s understanding about “Why” helps adopting the process (30:30)
• Requirement of collective efforts (31:30)

Regulatory development trend for different stage of companies

• Regulation difference is not necessary (33:00)
• Industry differentiation has two sides thoughts at the moment – a hybrid model might work better (34:30)

Best approach to build sustainable strategy

• Board and C-Suite role to understand ESG and its relationship to the company (36:30)
• Max ESG rating vs. underlying research information (38:30)

Doing it for real!

• Future forward looking – Digital revolution efficient ESG data collection and analysis (40:30)

Guest Contact Information

Marie-Josée Privyk

marie-josee.privyk@novisto.com

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Agnes Tai, Senior Partner of Yaozhi Asset Management International and an ESG thought leader. And Agnes has been a sustainable investor for many years.

The conversation of this episode focuses on stewardship and ESG reporting challenges and development in major Asian finance hubs.

Conversation Highlights

• Stewardship in Asia
  • Actively Proxy voting is just started in Asian companies, especially for E and S factors (4:00)
  • Stewardship in Asia is just become active and rewarding (5:40)

• ESG reporting challenges for Asian companies
  • Corporate progress on sustainable reporting (7:20)
  • Three Challenges in ESG reporting – lack of standard, confusing of various international standard, standard for data comparation, green washing, PR exercise, etc. (9:40)
  • ESG Service providers in Hong Kong are not standardized (12:30)

• What activities can be most supportive for ESG reporting improvement in Asian market
  • Various reporting standard on market today (14:40)
  • TCFD reporting is the focus of Asia market at the moment leading by Japan (JPIF) (15:20)
  • ESG education and incentives programs in Hong Kong (17:40)

• What are the biggest differences in HKEX 2020 new regime vs. previous ESG guidance
  • Climate-related disclosure only (19:00)
  • Transition risks, regulation risk and consumer behavior changes affect long-term reliability of business (22:30)
  • New IPO are required to have “ESG ready” (23:00)

Guest Contact Information

Agnes K Y Tai

https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnestai/

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Agnes Tai, Senior Partner of Yaozhi Asset Management International and an ESG thought leader. And Agnes has been a sustainable investor for many years.

Conversation of this episode is focusing on how government, local organizations and investors drive ESG movement in major Asian finance hubs.

Conversation Highlights

• How Agnes started Sustainable Investment and latest career with Yaozhi Asset Management (1:30)

• Different terms – responsible investing, sustainable investing, impact investing, ESG (3:30)

• PRI signatories rapid increasing in Asian countries
• Growing Number of PRI signatories in different Asian countries (3:30)
• Sustainable investing growing trend (9:45)

• How Asian countries governments drive ESG PRI signatories?
  • Major Asian countries’ ESG engagement status (12:10)
  • Transparency and disclosure are the key for effective ESG enforcement (14:20)
  • Asian countries are racing for leading roles in ESG and sustainable reporting (16:00)

• How Asian asset management firms influence ESG performance? (17:35)
  • Long-term value creating for portfolio companies (18:10)
  • Japan Case study (JPIF) started sustainable pension fund in 2016

• How Asian investors weight financial return vs. ESG performance? (25:30)
  • MSCI China ESG Index show good ESG performance leads to high financial return (26:10)
  • HK Fund manager code of conduct regulation in the next 12 months (28:00)
  • MSCI new reports focus on E and S factors (29:00)

Guest Contact Information

Agnes K Y Tai

https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnestai/

In this episode, Lyndsey moderates a debate between Patrick Dunne and Clint Bartlett. 

Patrick and Clint share their opinions regarding the effectiveness of Impact Investment in Africa and other related topics from their different roles in the impact investment ecosystem.

Conversation Highlights (with timestamps)

• What is impact investment? (2:10)
• What kind of structure is most effective for impact investing? (10:00)
• Challenges finding good impact investing project in Africa (22:20)
• When an impact project (education) does not work, where does the education project go, how to be sustainable? (31:00)
• Top reasons for impact investment failure? (38:00)
• How to bridge social impact and commercial impact (50:00)
• Bad experience shared by Patrick (61:00)
• Will recently issued UK stewardship code and stewardship code in South Africa help making impact investing more efficient? (65:00)

Guest Contact Information

Patrick Dunne

https://boardroomandbeyond.com/patrick-dunne/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickdunne2/

Twitter: patrickedunne

Email: patrickedunne@gmail.com

Websites:

leapcc.org.uk  (Leap)

warwick.ac.uk/warwickinafrica  (Warwick in Africa)

Clint Bartlett

https://boardroomandbeyond.com/clint-bartlett/

Email: Clint.bartlett@aya.yale.edu

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clintdbartlett/

Publication: https://nextbillion.net/risk-perception-funding-gap/

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Nawar Alsaadi, Acting-Chief Strategy & ESG Officer at Mark Labs. Nawar is a sustainable investment professional and experienced activist investor. He has been involved with a number of high-profile activist battles with TSX and NYSE listed companies on issues pertaining to corporate governance and corporate strategy.

The topic of this episode is about Nawar’s Material Engagement Strategy.

Conversation Highlights

• The motivation of Material Engagement strategy (2:20)
• The Missing Link (6:50)
• How to make engagement work? (12:00)
• How entities play their roles in Material Engagement strategy (16:00)
• The best way to make influence (21:00)
• How 3rd party service agency helps for shareholder engagement? (25:00)
• How to align shareholders goals? (30:00)
• Collaboration with Mark Labs (35:00)

Guest Contact Information

Email: Nawaralsaadi@gmail.com

Publications

The Bull of Heaven -

https://www.amazon.ca/Bull-Heaven-Millionaire-Fighting-Shareholder-ebook/dp/B00KK5I8VS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+bull+of+heaven+nawar&qid=1605455687&sr=8-1

Clock Zero: I am not my social feed

https://www.amazon.com/Clock-Zero-not-social-feed-ebook/dp/B01MXQKE96/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=clock+zero+nawar&qid=1605455727&sr=8-1

Website: https://engagementproject249624452.wordpress.com/

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Vivian Lin, partner and portfolio manager of William Blair’s China A-Shares Growth strategy and a global research analyst covering Chinese equities.

They continue the conversation by Vivian sharing her commendation regarding China investment opportunities by industry sectors and geographic locations.

Vivian then shared her opinion regarding Ant Group IPO incident and China regulation reform.

They close the conversation with discussion regarding Vivian’s view of China’s next 5-years plan and her investment strategy to reflect the upcoming changings of China economic focus according to the new 5-years plan.

Conversation Highlights (with timestamps)

#007 Part 2:

• Tech / health / Consumer sector preference vs. geographic locations (1:30)
• Industrial sector preference
• Different tiers by geographic location
• Ant group IPO suspended (4:00)
  • Ant’s quick growth bridged China financial services GAP for SMEs
  • The reasons of Ant Group’s trouble with China regulators
  • Positive development of future online financial service for China companies
  • Ant is not just technology company, it’s a financial company
  • Higher standard regulation can only make the industry more sustainable
  • China regulation catch up on online gaming, online education and e-commerce
• China new 5-year plan (12:30)
• Enforce A-share investment
• Continuous Domestic consumption focus
• Next 5-10 year, more positive about China investment opportunity
• China Star Market is part of China IPO reform focus

Guest Contact Information

Vivian Lin

Email: linthurston@gmail.com

Publication:

Vivian’s blog site on William Blair:

https://active.williamblair.com/author/vivian-lin-thurston/

“Sustainable Trends Supporting China A-Shares”

https://active.williamblair.com/global-equity/vivian-lin-thurston/sustainable-trends-supporting-china-a-shares/?et_rid=0030z00002PDYkRAAX&et_sid=526962&utm_source=MC_2&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=&utm_content=https%3a%2f%2factive.williamblair.com%2fglobal-equity%2fvivian-lin-thurston%2fsustainable-trends-supporting-china-a-shares%2f

“Three Themes in Emerging Markets”

https://active.williamblair.com/global-equity/todd-mcclone/three-themes-in-emerging-markets/?et_rid=0030z00002PDYkRAAX&et_sid=509978&utm_source=MC_2&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=&utm_content=https%3a%2f%2factive.williamblair.com%2fglobal-equity%2ftodd-mcclone%2fthree-themes-in-emerging-markets%2f

“China Backdrop: Fundamentally and Technically Positive”

https://active.williamblair.com/global-equity/vivian-lin-thurston/china-backdrop-fundamentally-and-technically-positive/