As a governance consultant, I attended a number of events in 2025, including Elevate’s Flexible Legal Resourcing Knowledge and Networking Event UK, GCs: Legal Leader in a Changing World, and one noticeable theme stood out for me.

No longer confined to traditional legal advisory functions, today’s legal leaders operate as strategic business partners navigating an increasingly complex web of geo-legal risks, sanctions regimes, political volatility, and regulatory uncertainty. In this environment, the effectiveness of corporate boards and their ability to work seamlessly with legal leadership has become a critical determinant of organisational resilience and success.

Good board governance is the foundation for resilience, but it is difficult to know what a good board looks like.  The best ones don’t just survive, they adapt and thrive.

With governance experience across listed companies, private enterprises, and not-for-profit organisations, I am dedicated to strengthening governance as the cornerstone of effective and resilient boards. One phrase that has stayed with me throughout my governance journey is ’The Fish Rots from the Head’ the title of Bob Garratt’s influential book on governance.  When the Board leads with clarity, integrity, and accountability, the organisation thrives. But when governance is neglected at the top, it inevitably filters down. Strong governance is not a formality, but instead a foundation for trust, resilience, and long-term success.

Geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, and regulatory evolution have created a perfect storm of challenges that demand a new approach to board governance. Legal leaders are at the centre of these pressures. Boards must think strategically, integrate risk holistically, maintain unity while embracing diverse perspectives, and foster relationships that enable rapid decision-making in crisis situations.

Pillar One: Think Strategically, Not Reactively

The Challenge of Short-Term Noise vs. Long-Term Trends

In today’s hyper-connected world, legal leaders are bombarded with a constant stream of regulatory changes, political shifts, and market disruptions. The challenge lies in identifying the underlying patterns that will shape the legal landscape over time.Consider the evolution of AI regulation. Headlines focus on specific legislative proposals or enforcement actions, but strategic boards see the broader move toward comprehensive AI governance frameworks. Similarly, the rise of ‘supply chain nationalism’, the increasing tendency of governments prioritising domestic supply chains over global efficiency, will reshape trade law, compliance obligations, and corporate structuring decisions for decades.

Strategic Thinking in Practice

Boards supporting legal leadership must develop the capability to distinguish between reactive responses and strategic positioning. This means investing time in understanding mega-trends such as digital sovereignty, climate liability evolution, and the complexity of sanctions. This can mean navigating overlapping and conflicting jurisdictional requirements.

Building Strategic Capability

Strategic thinking requires boards to create dedicated time and space for forward-looking analysis. Regular strategic sessions should go beyond quarterly compliance updates to examine longer term legal and regulatory trends. Boards must invest in continuous education, ensuring directors understand the legal landscape well enough to ask the right questions and provide meaningful guidance to legal leadership.

Pillar Two: Integrate Risk into Every Decision

Beyond Traditional Risk Silos

Treating legal risk as a separate category to be managed by the legal department is no longer sufficient. In today’s interconnected business environment, legal and regulatory considerations must be woven into the fabric of every significant business decision.

This integration is particularly critical where legal risk directly impacts business strategy. Geopolitical tensions don’t just create compliance obligations; they fundamentally alter market access, supply chain viability, and competitive dynamics. Similarly, regulatory shifts in one jurisdiction can have cascading effects on global operations, making early legal strategic considerations essential.

Risk Integration in Action

• Capital Allocation Decisions: Boards must ensure that legal and regulatory risk assessment is integrated into every major investment decision. This means understanding not just the immediate legal requirements of a potential investment, but also the regulatory trajectory that might affect its long-term viability. For instance, investments in emerging markets require understanding evolving sanctions risks. Technology investments must account for the rapidly changing data protection landscape and AI regulations.
• M&A Strategy: The integration of legal risk into M&A decisions goes far beyond traditional due diligence. Effective boards ensure that legal leadership is involved in target identification and deal structuring from the start. They must assess current compliance status and the regulatory environment the combined entity will face post-closing.
• Market Entry Planning: Geographic expansion decisions must incorporate sophisticated analysis of legal and regulatory risks that may not be immediately apparent. This includes understanding local legal systems, regulatory enforcement patterns, and the political stability that underlies legal frameworks.

Operational Integration

True risk integration requires boards to move beyond quarterly risk reviews to ongoing risk-informed decision-making. Legal leadership must provide input on all major business initiatives, not just as a final checkpoint, but as a strategic partner throughout the development process. The goal is to create a decision-making environment where legal considerations enhance rather than constrain business strategy. Legal leaders who understand business objectives and board members who appreciate the strategic value of legal insight can turn risk into opportunities.     For example, boards in emerging markets often face uncertainty around sanctions or trade restrictions. With proactive legal insight, some have successfully restructured supply chains or diversified markets, turning a potential liability into growth opportunities.  ESG, once seen as a reporting burden, has become an opportunity to attract ESG-focused investors, access green financing, and build stronger stakeholder relationships.

Pillar Three: Balance Diversity with Unity

The Diversity Imperative in Legal Oversight

The complexity of modern legal challenges demands diverse perspectives at the board level. No single director can possess expertise across all relevant areas, from cybersecurity law to international sanctions, from AI ethics to climate regulation. Boards must cultivate diversity of legal and regulatory expertise while maintaining the unity necessary for decisive action.

This diversity also includes geographic, cultural, and sectoral perspectives. Understanding regulatory trends in different jurisdictions requires directors with local knowledge and relationships. Similarly, emerging legal challenges in technology, sustainability, and social responsibility benefit from diverse professional backgrounds and life experiences.

Consider mapping current director skills, assist in recruitment/nomination by identifying needed competencies, facilitate onboarding and education (so directors understand legal risks), advise on director liability trends, promote a culture of dedication.

Managing Diversity in Crisis

The true test of board effectiveness comes during crisis situations when legal risks threaten immediate business continuity. The board’s diversity of perspective becomes both its greatest strength and its potential weakness. Different directors may interpret the same legal development differently or prioritise different aspects of a complex regulatory response.

Effective boards have protocols that clarify roles and responsibilities, and decision-making frameworks that can accommodate multiple viewpoints while driving toward resolution.

Unity Through Shared Understanding

Unity doesn’t mean agreement on every issue. Unity in diversity requires a foundation of shared understanding about the organisation’s legal risk profile and tolerance. There is a shared framework for evaluating legal risks and trade-offs.

Building this understanding requires ongoing education and communication. Boards must invest time in developing collective competency in key legal areas, while also respecting the specialised expertise that different directors bring to specific issues.

The goal is to create a board environment where diverse perspectives enrich discussion and improve decision-making, while shared values and frameworks enable swift action when circumstances demand it.

Pillar Four: Build Strong Relationships

The Communication Imperative

In an era of rapid legal and regulatory change, strong relationships between board members, management, and external stakeholders often determine organisational success. They enable the rapid information flow and coordinated decision-making that modern legal challenges demand.

These relationships are critical in crisis situations where traditional communication channels won’t suffice. When facing regulatory enforcement actions, geopolitical developments, or major litigation, the ability to quickly align board and management perspectives can mean the difference between effective crisis management and organisational paralysis.

Multi-stakeholder Coordination

Legal challenges rarely involve just internal stakeholders. Regulatory responses often require coordination with government agencies, industry associations, and peer organisations. Similarly, managing complex international legal issues may require relationships with local counsel, regulatory experts, and government relations professionals across multiple jurisdictions.

Effective boards help legal leadership build and maintain these external relationships before they are needed in crisis situations. This includes supporting legal teams in developing regulatory relationships, industry connections, and professional networks that can provide insight and assistance during challenging periods.

Communication Systems and Processes

Strong relationships require communication systems that can function under pressure. Clear protocols should be established for information sharing, regular touchpoints that maintain relationship quality, and crisis communication procedures that can be activated rapidly.

Leveraging technology is a growing trend that sees boards improve communication effectiveness, enable rapid information sharing, collaboration and support distributed decision-making.  However, understanding the data and how to interpret it is critical to providing insights into legal risk patterns and trends.

The goal is to create communication networks that provide legal leadership with the support and information needed to navigate complex challenges while ensuring that board members have the insight to provide effective guidance.

Implementation and Integration – Creating a Cohesive Framework

The four pillars of board effectiveness are most powerful when implemented as an integrated system. Strategic thinking informs risk integration, while diversity and unity provide the foundation for both. Strong relationships enable all three by facilitating the communication and coordination necessary for effectiveness.

Implementation requires a systematic approach that treats the four pillars as interconnected. Board education programs should enhance strategic thinking capabilities while building relationships. Risk assessment processes must leverage diverse perspectives while maintaining decision-making unity.

Measuring and Improving Effectiveness

Effective implementation requires ongoing assessment and improvement. Boards should use metrics and feedback loops to assess performance across all four pillars while identifying areas.

Regular assessment of strategic decision-making quality, risk integration effectiveness, diversity and unity balance, and relationship strength helps identify areas for improvement. Lessons learned from crisis situations and major decisions should inform future board development efforts.

Ensure you have trusted advisors to lead regular Board Effectiveness reviews.

The Path Forward

The legal challenges facing modern organisations will only grow more complex and intense. Climate litigation, AI regulation, geopolitical tensions, and technological disruption will continue to create new categories of legal risk while accelerating regulatory change.

Board effectiveness has become not just a governance best practice, but a competitive advantage. Boards that think strategically, integrate risk, balance diversity with unity, and build strong relationships will be better equipped to navigate challenges while seizing opportunities that others cannot pursue.

For GCs and legal leaders, these four pillars provide a framework for engaging with boards more effectively while building the organisational capabilities necessary for success in an increasingly complex legal landscape. By working with boards to strengthen each pillar, legal leaders can help their organisations thrive in the face of unprecedented legal and regulatory challenges.

Disclaimer: This post features insights from a guest author. Elevate occasionally invites select industry voices to share their perspectives on topics of interest to our audience. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Elevate.