2019-2020 NACD Public Company Governance Survey

The 2019–2020 NACD Public Company Governance Survey presents findings from our annual questionnaire, which was in the field from June through August 2019. This report’s takeaways are drawn from more than 500 public-company respondents and supplemented by data compiled by Main Data Group, a provider of executive-compensation benchmarking.

This year’s survey offers excellent insight into how directors and boards view the next 12 months:

• Which major business trends do they expect will have the most significant impact on their companies?

• What are the areas where they hope to improve board performance next year?

• Which topics are the ones on which directors want to spend more time during board meetings?

In addition, we assess how boards structure their quarterly agendas, and how boards oversee critical areas such as strategy formulation, enterprise risk, compliance and ethics, ESG, human capital, and cybersecurity.

Reports containing data from our private company surveys are published separately.

How boards can use this resource:

• Plan the board’s 2019 priorities.

• Validate risk and oversight practices.

• Rethink the board’s agenda setting.

• Identify areas for improvement in current governance practices.

• Compare relative time allocation for fulfilling key board activities.

Relevant audiences: Board members and corporate secretaries of public companies, especially board chairs, lead directors, and committee chairs