News

We would like to introduce you to VAB member, Rafael Schwarz, who joins our community from Munich, Germany. He is an internationally experienced board advisor and commercial strategist with a 20+ years track record in driving significant revenue growth and market expansion for B2B and B2C companies across Europe. Rafael has proven expertise in sales and marketing leadership, digital commerce, AI t

Discover why advisory boards are moving from occasional sounding boards to a core element of modern governance. Drawing on the latest global research, VAB member Stelios Christakos explores the trends reshaping the advisory market and what they mean for executives, board members and organisations looking to build long-term strategic value.Article link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-global-ad

We would like to introduce you to VAB member, Dora Matsia, who joins our community from Athens, Greece. She is a civil engineer, project manager and founder of MODERAMEN. Dora has almost 30 years of experience leading complex projects across construction, industrial, commercial and investment environments. She works at the intersection of strategy, governance and execution, helping organisations c

VAB member Hadi El-Assaad shares with us this July a new article exploring how the role of board risk committees is evolving in response to today's increasingly complex and unpredictable business environment. In his text, Governance Leadership in Times of Disruption: The Evolving Role of the Board Risk Committee, Hadi examines how boards can move beyond traditional compliance oversight to strength

VAB member Harini Sundaram has written a compelling piece exploring the energy factor in the equation concerning how we manage global data centers that form the backbone of infrastructure supporting global demand for advanced technologies like AI. In this article she looks at energy consumption as a strategic risk and board directors’ role in providing counsel on energy usage policy, infrastructur

There is a long-standing perception among some observers that middle management is inefficient or in danger of becoming irrelevant. But VAB member and chair of our Singapore chapter, and also a renowned author, Michael Jenkins, alongside his partners at the Future Work Forum (FWF), is challenging this view, arguing instead that dysfunction in middle management often reflects a failure of leadershi

A senior director said something to VAB member and Strategic AI Advisor Mohammed Adlani in a Riyadh strategy session that has stayed with him ever since: "The technology was never the hard part. Getting people to believe was." After a decade at the front line of Saudi digital transformation, Mohammed argues that this single sentence is the most honest summary of Vision 2030 ever spoken in a meetin

Our expert article in April 2026 looks at how leadership teams and boards should consider a mindset shift when it comes to pursuing new tech trends and investing in advanced technologies. Our member and marketing expert Rafael Schwarz writes about the evolving market for adtech solutions and why legacy-focused thinking (digitising old systems) needs to shift to an innovation mindset and exploratio

Following up on some inquiries the VAB team made with members of our Not-for-Profit Boards/NGO Boards network during last year, our member Rabie Jarmakani and his colleagues at the Pythagoras Cultural Society (PCS), namely its president Ola Sarieddine, put together an assessment of what it is like for governance and oversight boards working with NGOs in Lebanon. The attached text provides real-lif

VAB member Loraine Phillips has written for the VAB community a new text with thoughts on how boards and company leadership teams can improve their approaches to foresight thinking in terms of cyber resilience. In this text, she highlights key areas where action needs to be taken: facing the inevitability of risk, overcoming the myth of matters being too technical and defining strategies for preve

VAB member George Bakos shared with us in January 2026 a new article highlighting the critical importance of succession planning for family business structures and how boards can help guide such transitions and make them run more smoothly. In his text, When Succession Becomes Strategy: How Boards Create Value in Family Businesses, George explores topics such as governance challenges relating to su

We would like to introduce you to VAB member, Mohammed Adlani, who joins our community from Saudi Arabia. He is an architect of AI-Native enterprises and national-scale digital economies who as a 22-year track record bridging enterprise strategy and emerging technology across Tier-1 telcos, global consulting and diversified holding groups. The latter projects span across Europe, Africa and the GCC

We’d like to introduce you to VAB member Jennifer Vessels, a Silicon Valley veteran based in Oslo, Norway.  She is CEO of Next Step and has led transformation for Adobe, Google, IKEA, Microsoft and Novartis. Jennifer brings visionary yet practical insights to boards based on her  25+ years’ experience leading transformative growth within Fortune 100 companies and is an award-winning keynote speake

The VAB team is happy to welcome Henry Sichel to our community. He is based in Italy and is co-founder and managing partner of Caffeina, a creative marketing consulting agency he founded together with his partners. At Caffeina, Henry leads the company’s cultural direction and corporate affairs, helping clients and teams challenge the status quo through talent, curiosity and courage. Under his lead

We are pleased to introduce you to Stéphane Rogovsky who joined the VAB community from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He is an experienced leader in the banking and finance sector and more recently has developed a passion for influencer marketing: specifically, building governance frameworks to deliver greater discipline in this space. He recently published a book on this topic that we h

For many organisational leaders and C-level executives, career progression has traditionally followed a linear narrative: role by role, responsibility by responsibility, success defined by hierarchy, scope and administrative liability (obligations). Yet as careers lengthen (what is referred to as increasing longevity)and organisational or learning cycles speed up (advanced acceleration), an increa

We would like to introduce our member Daniel Lehmann, who joins the VAB community from Zürich, Switzerland. Daniel has over 20 years of business leadership experience. He has led companies across various industries (textiles, retail and distribution, packaging, manufacturing, OEM electronics) and has a passion for supporting businesses, specifically SMEs, scale and grow market share. Daniel is kee

We are pleased to introduce our member Rania Abou Samra, who joins the VAB community from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Rania is a global R&D and innovation leader with deep expertise in nutrition science, technology-enabled innovation and enterprise R&D strategy. She currently serves as Vice President and Head of Innovation and Research & Development at Nestlé Middle East & North Africa, whe

We would like to introduce our member Rafael Molho, who joins the VAB community from Greece. Rafael is an expert in the fields of international sourcing, procurement and trade development. He currently contributes as an advisory expert to UN/CEFACT working groups and participates in UNCTAD working groups and expert discussions in his personal capacity. He is also managing director at TradeCoup, a

VAB member Richard Tusabe was recently appointed as an independent NED (non-executive director) at I&M Bank (Rwanda) Plc. Below he shares some insights on his professional transformation and his path to this new governance role.What started you on your path to your new role – a network referral, a board role facilitator organisation/head-hunter, another route?My appointment to this role was initia