Salzburg Global Fellow Sandra Lawrence provides a cross-sector view of AI’s impact on corporate governance
Sandra A.J. Lawrence is an accomplished executive with extensive experience in financial and corporate governance leadership, spanning roles in healthcare, finance, and non-profit sectors. Her awards and affiliations have included: NACD’s Directorship 100; WomenInc’s Most Influential Corporate Directors; C3KC Award; Executive Leadership Council; Savoy Magazine’s Top 100 Corporate Directors; Directors & Boards’ Directors to Watch; Ingram’s 250 Most Powerful; and many others. She currently serves on the boards of multiple listed companies as well as on several non-profit boards.
Audrey Plimpton, Salzburg Global Communications Associate: You have decades of executive leadership experience in healthcare, real estate, financial services, and personal computing. What are some lessons you have learned about corporate governance from these diverse sectors?
Sandra Lawrence, Independent/Corporate Director: Initially, you look at them and think that they're all different and that the rules that apply to one don't apply to the other. The one thing that I've learned is that even though the rules might look different in one industry, if you take those lessons to another industry, it will sometimes inform how you shape the rules for that one. You might make some revisions [and] you might look at things differently. You might be more critical of information that's coming in because you can recognize that there may be other data out there. It just broadens that toolkit and your information base.
AP: What do you view as the opportunities and risks of AI for corporate governance?
SL: The opportunities are huge. I think that it's almost as if it's not a choice anymore. It's already here and it will just be expanding tremendously over years to come. So that opportunity is one that we just kind of accept, not necessarily have to go out and find, because it's there. The risks are that having more data and more access to different uses of data also means that you may not necessarily know what is the most meaningful to you. I think how we use it [and] how we define how we need to use it will be important. Otherwise, we could become overwhelmed. It's like when email came into play, and everyone thought that it would make the world so much easier. But it just extends your workday. It gives you access to a lot of information. But if you're not careful about how you catalog and monitor it, it can be overwhelming. AI can be the same way. It's important for us to figure out upfront what that business model is [and] what the strategies are and let that drive how you adopt AI.
AP: How are the companies that you serve on the board for utilizing AI in their corporate governance and operations?
SL: The boards on which I serve are all having conversations about AI and even generative AI. We've had staff bring in information for us. We've had consultants come in to talk with us. We're recognizing that generative AI is starting to make its way into those businesses already, but we're still trying to figure out exactly what it means for us and how it fits into the companies’ operations, the companies’ governance, and probably most importantly, the risk profiles of the companies.
AP: How do you think the discussions from this program can inform your current and future work?
SL: There are a number of ways. One of them is that just hearing people around the table and knowing what their backgrounds have been, I now have resources I can go to when I have questions beyond this program. But as important has been the fact that around the room we have people from so many different geographies. They look at the world in different ways because the structures in different countries are different. It's been helpful to me to understand some of the reasons why. But it also makes me ask why our systems need to be designed the way that we might be contemplating them. Maybe some of the things that are happening in other places are appropriate for my environment. I like the cross-fertilization that comes from taking information from one place and trying to apply pieces of it to someplace else… [At Salzburg Global,] we were having a conversation about how we, as a world, can get people on the same page about some of the important values that should be embedded in financial models.
Sandra Lawrence is among the 35 Fellows who participated in the Salzburg Global Corporate Governance Forum from October 4-6, 2023, at Schloss Leopoldskron. Salzburg Global Seminar’s 2023 Corporate Governance Forum on "Promise or Peril? Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Corporate Governance" explored the complex geopolitical considerations and risks posed by AI and whether corporations should (or must) adopt artificial intelligence (AI) approaches in their corporate oversight functions and in their business operations, internal governance, and management of human capital.
