BoardPro Podcasts

Tension Tolerance: Fostering healthy debate around the board table

Discover how to build the board's capacity for tension tolerance — the ability to sit with discomfort, hold competing views, and let healthy debate run its course rather than rushing to premature consensus. This session equips directors with practical tools to recognise when productive friction is being suppressed, to keep robust disagreement constructive, and to draw out the diverse perspectives that strengthen collective decision-making — all without compromising the trust, respect, or cohesion that hold an effective board together

Webinar: Presenting to boards

Make every board invitation count. This webinar shows you how to present with the clarity, evidence and strategic insight directors need—to accelerate decisions, illuminate performance and provoke the right conversations. Turn a board presentation into influence. Discover how to meet directors’ needs with concise evidence, actionable insight and strategic framing that drives better decisions and richer discussion. Learn how to speed and improve board decision-making, surfacing the right data and insight, sparking strategic discussion, and shaping outcomes.

Webinar: The AI Governance Gap-What 485 Leaders Told Us. And What Your Board Does Next

The BoardPro AI Governance Pulse surveyed 485 board directors, executives, and governance leaders across Australia and New Zealand, revealing a rapidly widening gap between how quickly AI is being adopted inside organisations and how slowly governance frameworks, policies, and oversight practices are evolving to keep pace. While many leaders acknowledge the transformative potential of AI, the findings highlight growing concerns around risk visibility, board capability, accountability, and the absence of clear governance structures to guide safe and responsible deployment. Join governance and AI experts Helen van Orton and Alexie O'Brien as they unpack the key findings from the survey, explore what high-performing organisations are doing differently, and provide a practical, step-by-step action plan that boards and leadership teams can begin implementing immediately. If your organisation is struggling to move from AI discussion to effective AI governance and execution, this webinar will help you turn insight into action starting this Monday.

Webinar: What is healthy governance

Lucy Byrne has had the opportunity to sit on a wide range of boards,  big and small, governance and regulatory, some amazing and some… not so amazing. She’s seen board packs that run to 2,000 pages and others where decisions are made on a whim. Governance itself is mostly common sense, right?  don’t go broke, manage the CEO, handle conflicts etc etc... Where it gets tricky is when you add humans! Different personalities, expectations, experiences, and communication styles all come together, and that’s where boards either strengthen or struggle. Through all of Lucy’s experience one thing has become clear: the culture around the board table and understanding of governance processes is what truly determines whether a board thrives and that’s why governance training needs to be accessible, achievable, and actionable. No jargon. No overwhelm. Just practical tools people can actually use. In this webinar, Lucy will introduce her 5-Step Healthy Governance Framework ™, a simple, people-centered model shaped by real board experience and continuous learning: 1. Acknowledge Attributes 2. Understand Obligations 3. Contemplate Carefully 4. Operate as a Collective 5. Review, Reflect, Renew This 45-minute webinar offers a down-to-earth, achievable way to strengthen governance — helping your board operate with clarity, confidence and a shared sense of purpose.

Webinar: Beyond Compliance: Turning Risk into Strategic Insight

Most organisations treat risk as a compliance exercise, something to monitor, report, and minimise. But what if that mindset is holding back real strategic value? In this webinar, we challenge the traditional view of risk and explore how Boards and executives can reframe it as a driver of innovation, opportunity, and competitive advantage. Drawing on leading-edge governance practices, you’ll discover how to shift risk from a passive reporting function into an active strategic conversation, one that uncovers hidden opportunities, informs better decision-making, and even creates new revenue pathways.  If you’re ready to move beyond box-ticking and start using risk as a tool to shape the future, this session will show you how.