As the board chair and CEO pursue planning for upcoming board and committee meetings, the chief legal officer may wish to recommend two important governance issues for agenda consideration. As framed by recent developments, these issues relate to the company’s possible commitment to principles of stakeholder capitalism, and to consideration of possible governance “lessons learned” from the pandemic.

As evidenced by media coverage, scholarly observations and third-party initiatives, both of these issues are part of current governance discourse, and invoke core fiduciary obligations of officers and directors of corporations across industry sectors and form of organization. They also properly within the scope of the chief legal officer’s governance focus, on behalf of the board and executive leadership.