The Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the Jindal School presented its 19th Annual Corporate Governance Conference on campus this fall after in-person gatherings resumed following a nearly two-year pause to curtail the spread of COVID-19. Presentations at the Sept. 22 event centered on pandemic-related and other disruptions common today.

Freeman Company Chair Carrie Freeman Parsons and CEO Bob Priest-Heck had a fireside chat, Governance Lessons from the Pandemic, during which they discussed how they kept the trade-show logistics and technology company afloat when virtually all convention centers were padlocked.

Freeman Parsons affirmed that the board and management team worked in concert when it became obvious that they were all going to have to kick into high gear. “Everyone was 1,000% supportive that we were not going to panic, and we were not going to just react, that we were in this for the long run, that we had a healthy balance sheet, and we were going to make good decisions,” she said.

John Ellerman, partner emeritus at Pay Governance LLC, an executive compensation consultancy, spoke about incorporating ESG — environmental, social and governance — metrics into executive incentive plans. Included among these are how well a company delivers in ethics, sustainability, safety, equity, diversity and inclusion.

ESG differentiates itself from shareholder primacy in that it considers all company stakeholders — customers, local community suppliers and anyone who has a vested interest in the company — as having equal standing.

“Companies that excel at these [metrics] are going to, in fact, be superior companies over the long term,” Ellerman said.

A special panel discussion, Governance and Cybersecurity, walked the audience through a tabletop exercise that simulated a cybersecurity incident at a global corporation and how best to develop an incident response at the C-suite and board levels.

Jackie Kimzey, an associate professor of practice in the Jindal School’s Organizations, Strategy and International Management Area, was the keynote speaker, as part of the Max Hopper Speaker Series. Hopper (1934-2010), an information technology pioneer and past chairman of the JSOM Advisory Council, disrupted the airline industry by developing the computerized airline reservation system SABRE in the mid-1970s.

During his presentation, Board Governance in a Disruptive World, Kimzey implored leaders to “disrupt or be disrupted.”

“Disruptive innovators are a threat to your organization, whoever you might be,” he said. “In a digital world, your competitive advantage is going to be pretty transitory. Leadership is going to matter, big time.”

Kimzey said that specific training for directors to enhance the board’s oversight is also important.

Institute Executive Director Gregg Ballew, who opened and closed the conference, said the institute had recently updated its strategic plan and would be building on its success over the years.

“We want to connect the dots for management teams, board members and stakeholders to help build better management, board and stakeholder systems,” he said.

Supporting sponsors of the institute and the event, which was held at the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center, included Holland & Knight, Texas Capital Bank, Whitley Penn, ExxonMobil and Texas Instruments.