Adam Ennamli – Get to know our VAB member
It is our pleasure to introduce you to our member Adam Ennamli who joins VAB from Canada. He currently serves as chief risk, compliance and security officer at the General Bank of Canada and is an official member of Forbes Technology Council for the Americas. In the past, he served as global VP for operations and technology at Thomson Reuters and managing director for risk ops and analytics at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). Adam is a Montréal native and contributes in his free time to educational and development initiatives as a team lead for Management Consulting at HEC Montréal and as a management consultant at the Grameen Foundation. If you would like to learn more about Adam, please feel free to reach out to him to discuss his professional experience and his board journey plans.
What inspired you to become a member of the Virtual Advisory Board community?
I was drawn by the opportunity to interact with global leaders who share a passion for innovation and execution. Being part of this global network allows me to both contribute to and learn from diverse perspectives, while collectively working to transform ideas into real use cases for the benefit of all.
In what area do you feel board advisors can add the most value for Boards of Directors (BoDs) and executive teams?
Board advisors provide crucial value in strategy execution and risk navigation. Their diverse industry experience helps boards anticipate market shifts and identify blind spots, while their independent perspective legitimises and strengthens decision-making processes. On the risk side, the deep operational expertise they bring from multiple contexts helps bridge the gap between strategic vision and the reality of implementation, which is key to navigating every risk.
Beyond pure strategy and risk management, board members are particularly valuable in guiding business transformations. In my opinion, they should also be bolder on workforce strategy, succession planning, ensuring organisations build robust and diverse leadership pipelines.
What would be your dream company/organisation to work with as a board advisor/NED?
Every organisation at the crossroads of finance and technology with a global, sustainable mindset would be a wonderful place for me to advise. I'm interested in organisations, private or public, that are actively working to solve complex global challenges - whether that's in democratising access to financial services, developing innovative banking solutions, or leveraging technology to create more efficient and equitable supply chains.
What attracts me isn't necessarily the size or prestige of the company, but rather their ambition to create lasting positive change and their openness to bold thinking in their governance and strategy execution.
What book or podcast would you recommend to VAB members that might improve their skills in corporate governance, board advisory or boosting board-to-executive team communications?
I would recommend taking a look at Talent, Strategy, Risk: How Investors and Boards Are Redefining TSR by Bill McNabb, Ram Charan, and Dennis Carey which provides very good insights on how boards need to adapt to new priorities around talent, strategy, and risk management, which are for me the new fundamental pillars of every competitive advantage. As a bonus, given that most organisations are now going through digital transformations, Digitizing Boardroom by Pearl Zhu is a useful guide for boards of directors as they define their target state.
