Uncharted Spaces: How do boards need to evolve for the future?

Guest post by Shefaly M. Yogendra, Ph.D. Her book “Uncharted Spaces. Reset the Agenda. Reimagine the Boardroom.” is out now.

A recent Institute of Directors Ireland snap poll of Irish business leaders found that most directors use AI tools with varying degrees of confidence, and a majority believes AI adoption is critical for competitiveness and relevance. However fully two-thirds are not confident about their understanding of the impact of the Regulation of AI Bill 2026 on their business. Fewer than half of the boards have discussed AI governance in the last year. This suggests a gap in broader AI fluency and hence potentially deficient guardrails and governance mechanisms. While there is huge opportunity, risks need to be managed smartly too. E.g. a 3GEM research report found that while 89% of Irish SME workers actively use AI tools in their daily workflows, only 44% of those organizations have a formal AI policy or strategy. In plain English this is a shadow IT challenge. On steroids.

Uncharted Spaces

How could Irish SME boards enable strategic success for their businesses, such as by ensuring safe, responsible, compliant AI adoption?

Here are some actionable ideas.

Relevant skills: A recent EY CHRO 2030 survey found that Generative AI adoption and the transition to a green economy are both accelerating at the same time. This means that skills that did not really crystallise even five years ago are needed urgently. It is crucial to get hiring right and to build strategic, ongoing skills development capacity in the business. This change would start with the board and the executive leadership team, underpinned by a regularly updated, dynamic skills matrix. The skills matrix needs to move away from box-ticking with the static safety of well-known employers and past big titles, and move towards active exploration of experience, capabilities, and evidence of growth and reflection. This will of course change sourcing, interviewing, and appointment of candidates, and then how the board evaluates its own construction continually for relevance.

Relevant mindsets: In addition to hiring for demonstrable capabilities and skills, future-relevant boards need mindsets that shape the business for future success. A changed mindset would view compliance and governance not as burdens or checklists but as enablers of growth and client acquisition.

Cubic Telecom’s well-known governance evolution serves as an illustrative example. Following a capital event where SoftBank became a majority owner, the board reconfigured itself to balance global ambition with local roots and operational agility. SoftBank-appointed directors serve alongside strategic customer observers from Audi and Qualcomm, while the founder and CEO Barry Napier helps bridge the company’s Irish product roots with its international ambition.

Barespace provides another live example, this time of how high-calibre, enterprise-grade governance could be designed and implemented well, right from the start. Following a €2.9 million seed round in September 2025, the company appointed prominent Irish VC and tech veteran Brian Caulfield as Chair of the board. Its strategic advisers include Rick Kelley and Barry Napier, who bring growth and strategic nous to the boardroom right from the foundational stage. The wisdom of these choices is borne out in the experiences of building new businesses, where specialists, hands-on warriors and famous names all play specific roles in the shaping of the business.

Relevant cadence: Future-relevant boards need a different workflow and cadence than the current practice of quarterly, compliance-centric approaches. Rolling strategic reviews would serve the business well especially with shrinking and super-short technology hype cycles. These hype cycles do not need reactive, kneejerk responses but steady and calm leadership to steer the business through a time of rapid change. Wild success, however we define it, is not accidental but deliberate.

Culture as the underpinning enabler. Navigating these uncharted spaces demands that the board and the executive team remain fit-for-purpose. Ensuring that would require a strong board and organisational culture — of commitment to the long-term success of the business over any personal ambition, of accountability in the service of that commitment, and where openness and disciplined experimentation are prized not punished. Together these factors would enable resilience, inventiveness, and long-term success of the business, helped by an evolved board.

Shefaly Yogendra, PhD is an experienced independent board director. She has helped shape strategic resilience and innovation in both owner-led and professional manager-led businesses. Her book “Uncharted Spaces. Reset the Agenda. Reimagine the Boardroom.” is out now.

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