Effective Boards in Uncertain Times: The CEO’s Trusted Partner for Growth and Risk

Uncertainty is the key word of the day. From geopolitical tensions to economic instability, CEOs are leading in a consistently unpredictable environment. At a recent gathering of public company CEOs and directors in Atlanta, we asked the CEOs: Who is your best resource for discussing and making sense of the challenges when navigating uncertainty? The top four responses were: my senior leadership team, other CEOs outside of my company, my board of directors and my board chair.

• Senior leadership teams truly in the trenches with the CEO, living through uncertainty and operational pressures in real time.
• CEO peers who are “in the fight” rather than observing it bring a sense of currency and diverse vantage points on fast-changing topics, including geopolitics, AI and trade tariffs.
• Boards offer experience but may lack real-time operational experience, which may make it challenging to be current at the speed that issues like AI require.
• Board chairs can be invaluable—if trust and role clarity exist. Chairs must guide without directing, ensuring the board is a resource, not a hurdle.

These responses echo the findings of Egon Zehnder’s latest CEO survey, which found that 1,235 CEOs globally turn first and foremost to their executive teams (75%), followed by other CEOs (43%), independent board of directors (28%) and the Chair (23%). The study also found that CEOs are accepting constant uncertainty and responding with higher levels of adaptability.

For boards to effectively support CEOs and senior leadership, directors should actively challenge and guide management on strategy, risk, and capital allocation—without becoming operationally involved. A strong Chair helps maintain this balance, built on trust and clear roles with the CEO. Role clarity prevents power struggles and ensures productive tension, especially under time pressure.

Beyond role clarity, it’s essential to define the rules of engagement, especially when there are extenuating circumstances such as activists and M&A. (In these circumstances, it can be useful to consider establishing temporary board committees to address complex decisions, including major acquisitions, activist engagement and more).

An effective chair curates the board’s composition, manages dynamics, and channels board time to focus on the CEO’s and company’s most important needs. This approach concentrates expertise and accelerates decision-making without bogging down the full board. One company described two acquisitions that were shepherded through a subcommittee approved by the board and composed by the chair.

Another key area to define when, where and how the board should be involved is talent. While most CEOs at our gathering noted a clear division of labor—management leads executive hiring decisions, but values board participation during the latter stages of fit and alignment. This assures candidates that management and the board are aligned and reassures the board that leadership composition is thoughtfully managed. Final selection remains with management. It also pays to have the board engaged on talent, as they can keep an eye toward patterns or gaps among the senior leadership team.

CEOs noted a distinct shift from using discrete AI tools to using AI agents to act as virtual teammates—complete with email addresses, role credentials and defined responsibilities. These AI agents are embedded in hybrid teams, working alongside people, and offering superhuman access to data and high-speed analytics. Using AI agents has helped with productivity gains. One CEO shared that in marketing, there was a 500% increase in digital asset creation, which includes images, videos and content, with no headcount increase over the prior year. Another added that they saw a 300-400% increase in productivity in customer service, reducing response times from about 3 hours to only 15 minutes. 

How quickly AI is embedded across an organization comes back to how quickly teams can scale it. CEOs highlighted two paths to doing so:

Top-down Coordination with Functional “AI Navigators”

• One CEO shared that their company transitioned from grassroots experimentation to a top-down program. They appointed an AI navigator in every function—30+ leaders across the company—to drive adoption in both high-volume standardized processes and messy, cross-functional ones. Notably, the leader appointed to orchestrate AI did not come from a pure data-science background; instead, the company chose a head of supply chain with a track record of large-scale transformation and paired that leader with a strategy leader. They kept the emphasis on execution at enterprise scale.
• Digital Fluency First, Then Agile Sprints for High-Impact Use Cases
  Another CEO noted that their company invested two years in building digital fluency across leadership tiers (the executive leadership team and vice presidents), establishing a common language. Then they curated a portfolio of high-impact AI projects and ran short sprints to test hypotheses, gather results, and iterate, with a pipeline of additional projects behind the first wave. Real-time practice displaced theory and created a cadence of “learn, test, recalibrate.”

Looking ahead, CEOs anticipate AI playing a bigger role in consumer engagement and brand experience that goes beyond traditional client relationship management.

Keeping up with the rapid changes in AI and other technologies is no small feat, and it can be an even greater challenge for board members who are no longer acting executives and not experiencing the pressures of a daily operating environment. This is why ongoing board education is a governance responsibility. This continuing education goes beyond security and compliance, ensuring the full board has a baseline knowledge on how AI and other technologies could reshape the business model, cost structure, customer experience and competitive landscape so they can be informed in their oversight responsibilities.

CEOs shared several approaches they are using, including bringing in external educators such as platform companies or strategy firms to brief the board on AI and related technologies using live demonstrations and case studies; inviting law firms to discuss AI governance, data risk and regulatory horizons, and engaging in joint CEO-board learning sessions to build shared fluency and inform strategy conversations. Paramount to this ongoing education is determining the appropriate cadence and topic refreshment to ensure you are keeping pace with how quickly technologies and external factors are changing.

Many boards spend a disproportionate amount of time on compliance, financial minutiae, and procedural updates. Attendees advocated for reclaiming time for strategy and innovation at every meeting, not just once a year. One suggestion was to have three slides at the start of a meeting that cover “Since we last met” with concise bullet points summarizing major developments since the previous meetings. This quickly grounds everyone on the starting point of the meeting before moving into more detailed topics. In addition, a “So what?” style executive summary can also help directors to zero in on what matters now, focusing on what’s going well, what isn’t and what help is needed from the board.

A small but insightful point is to keep the formats of board presentations consistent across quarterly meetings. Directors only see materials periodically and consistent layouts help reduce cognitive friction, keeping the focus on what is in the materials and not orienting themselves to a new style.

Lastly, don’t go overboard with pre-reads. If you include a document, have a good reason for doing so and expect the board members to read it. Use appendices sparingly because every document presented carries liability implications. Before adding a document, ask if it answers foreseeable questions if you are adding it “just in case.”

The Chair must be a good steward of the board’s time, adhering to the agenda, ending tangential conversations and keeping the discussions focused at the right altitude (i.e., not in the weeds of operations), and ensuring enough time is spent on the CEO’s most pressing issues. Post-meeting, the Chair and the CEO should debrief, and the Chair can offer direct feedback to the CEO about the pacing, depth and any instances where the conversation drifted into tactical operations.

Time is something no board member has enough of—the National Association of Corporate Directors notes that annual independent director time commitment has risen to more than 300 hours over the last 10 years. Some attendees at our gathering questioned whether longer meetings and more frequent sessions might become the new norm, given the expansion of risk domains and general uncertainty in the operating environment. Some participants suggested implementing dedicated technology or strategy sessions in addition to regular meetings.

Amid all the uncertainty, if boards invest in continuing education, building strong partnerships with the CEO and honing their agility, they will be best poised to help their organizations make highly informed, critical decisions and be a true resource for the CEO.