- Six years BC: Before Cadbury.
No email. No board portal. No Teams. No regulatory alerts arriving on a smartphone. No AI. The World Wide Web had not even been invented. Board papers were actually made of paper.
A director preparing for a meeting would most likely have had a printed board pack delivered, a diary, a telephone, a calculator and, if particularly well equipped, a fax machine somewhere nearby.
Forty years later, quite a lot has changed. Not least the amount a director is expected to know.
Then came Cadbury In 1992, the Cadbury Report introduced what the Financial Reporting Council describes as the world's first corporate governance code.
It also gave corporate governance one of its most enduring concepts: comply or explain.
Cadbury focused particularly on boards, financial reporting, control and auditors. But it wasn't alone for long.
Greenbury followed in 1995, focusing on directors' remuneration. Hampel followed in 1998, bringing earlier recommendations together into the Combined Code. Turnbull arrived in 1999, strengthening the focus on internal control. The governance bookshelf had begun.
And this was no longer just a British story.
Also in 1999, the OECD issued its first Principles of Corporate Governance, establishing what would become an international benchmark.
Governance was going global.
Then things accelerated The early 2000s were busy.
In the United States, major corporate failures were followed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 and significant changes to securities and stock-exchange governance requirements.
The UK continued developing its own approach.
Singapore's Code of Corporate Governance, issued in 2001, came into effect for listed companies in 2003.
The European Union was developing its own corporate governance architecture through company law, recommendations and directives.
And in the UK, 2003 brought the Higgs Review of the role and effectiveness of non-executive directors.
Among the Suggestions for Good Practice published alongside Higgs was a wonderfully sensible piece of advice on director induction:
“Care should be taken not to overload the new director with too much information.”
Twenty-three years later... we may have lost the memo.
Everybody added something What happened next is perhaps the most interesting part of the story. There was no single moment when somebody decided that directors needed to think about everything they encounter today. It accumulated.
Luxembourg created its X Principles of Corporate Governance in 2006, which came into force in 2007.
The EU's Shareholder Rights Directive followed in 2007.
Jersey developed governance requirements through its regulatory Codes of Practice.
The BVI embedded board and corporate governance requirements in its Regulatory Code.
The Isle of Man developed sector-specific governance codes and regulatory requirements.
Ireland strengthened governance across regulated financial services, later developing detailed requirements for fund management company effectiveness.
Guernsey issued its Finance Sector Code of Corporate Governance in 2011, effective from 2012.
Bermuda continued developing sector-specific governance requirements through the Bermuda Monetary Authority.
DIFC strengthened its markets and corporate governance framework in 2012, drawing explicitly on international approaches including the UK and EU.
Cayman developed corporate governance guidance for regulated funds and subsequently broadened its governance framework across regulated entities.
ADGM arrived in 2015 with an entirely new legal and financial-services regulatory framework of its own.
And internationally, the OECD Principles evolved into the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance.
By 2023, those Principles included a new chapter devoted to sustainability and resilience.
Ireland introduced its first Irish Corporate Governance Code for listed companies in 2024, applicable from 2025.
The UK Corporate Governance Code continued evolving too, with the 2024 Code now in effect and Provision 29 applying to financial years beginning on or after January 2026.
Nobody added everything at once. Everybody added something.
And importantly, most of it was added for a reason. Corporate failures exposed weaknesses. Financial crises changed expectations. Markets became more international. Businesses became more complex. Shareholders demanded greater transparency. Regulators strengthened oversight. Technology transformed organisations. Cyber risk moved from the server room to the boardroom. Operational resilience became a governance issue. Sustainability entered the conversation. Digital assets created new questions. Artificial intelligence created several more.
The problem isn't that directors are being told too much. It's that there is rather more to tell them.
Meanwhile, something else was changing While governance was evolving, so was the way information reached the board.
The printed board pack became the PDF. The PDF became the electronic board pack. The electronic board pack became the board portal. The board portal became searchable, connected and increasingly intelligent. Email replaced much of the correspondence that once moved on paper. Video conferencing changed where meetings could take place. Smartphones made directors reachable almost everywhere. Regulatory information that once had to be actively sought could now arrive automatically. And AI has begun changing how information itself can be searched, compared, analysed and interrogated.
The board pack didn't disappear. It learned new tricks.
And perhaps more accurately:
The paper disappeared. The paperwork didn't.
None of that is an argument for returning to 1986. Few directors would volunteer to exchange searchable board papers, instant communications and digital access for a filing cabinet and a fax machine.
Technology has made information dramatically more accessible. Governance has made the information reaching boards more comprehensive. The two developments have largely happened together.
The modern director Which brings us to 2026.
A modern director may sit across several boards. Those appointments may span different sectors and potentially jurisdictions. Each organisation may have its own board portal, administrator or company secretary, advisers, reporting processes, calendars, policies, documents and systems.
One director can therefore move between several perfectly well-organised governance environments while their own working environment remains surprisingly fragmented.
The board pack is in one place. Email somewhere else. Meetings in a calendar. Actions in minutes, notes or another system. Regulatory developments arrive through alerts, newsletters, websites and advisers. Conflicts have to be tracked. Documents retained. Appointments managed. Fees recorded. Governance questions researched. And another organisation may do all of those things differently.
Each organisation built its governance environment around its board. The director still moves between them.
That distinction matters. Because forty years of governance evolution has been extraordinarily successful at increasing the information, expertise and infrastructure available to boards.
The challenge for the director is increasingly how to navigate it.
There isn't too much information. There is more to know. That may be the most important distinction. A cyber report isn't unnecessary because directors didn't receive one in 1986. Neither is an operational resilience assessment. Or an AI policy. Or a regulatory update. Or information about financial crime risk, sustainability, technology, internal controls or any of the other matters that have progressively entered the boardroom.
The world changed. Governance responded. Reporting responded. Technology responded.
And directors adapted. The modern board is better informed because of much of that progress.
But there is an inevitable consequence.
The governance environment surrounding the director has become vastly more sophisticated.
So perhaps the next evolution isn't about giving directors even more information. Perhaps it is about helping them navigate what is already there. Helping them find what matters. Helping them connect information across a fragmented working environment. Helping them explore unfamiliar questions. Helping them identify what deserves closer attention. Helping them arrive at the boardroom better informed and better prepared to exercise their own judgement.
Forty years ago, the challenge was getting information to the director. Today, information can reach them almost instantly.
The next challenge is helping the director navigate it.
After all, the Suggestions for Good Practice published alongside Higgs did warn us.
We may simply have lost the memo.