Friso van der Oord is a member of NACD’s Senior Leadership Team and oversees the nearly 30-person team that develops NACD’s publications, thought leadership, research, tools, and in-person and online events that drive corporate board leadership and best practices. He is an experienced corporate board advisor who, since joining NACD in 2015, works with Fortune 500 and private-company executives, institutional investors, futurists, and policymakers on major risk, shareholder engagement, and trust challenges.

Van der Oord and his team are responsible for the highly sought-after Blue Ribbon Commission Report, which for the past 30 years has helped directors bridge current governance practices with what’s needed for the future, and the NACD Directors Summit^™, where more than 1,600 governance leaders representing 1,450 boards gather each year. The dozens of award-winning publications, research initiatives, and events his team develops each year are a leading factor in NACD earning the reputation as the most trusted association for corporate directors. 

He is often quoted in the media on current issues impacting boards and their governance priorities and has spoken at IIA, the Conference Board, and numerous NACD chapter events. Van der Oord has also co-authored articles with McKinsey on crisis governance, MIT Sloan Management Review on the role of the board in cybersecurity, and, most recently, the World Economic Forum on technology trends that require calculated risk-taking. Friso also represents NACD with the Global Network of Director Institutes, which fosters cross-border collaboration on governance matters with 22 other organizations.

Prior to joining NACD, he held several leadership roles at the Corporate Executive Board and LRN, a privately held education and advisory firm that helps companies enable principled and sustainable performance. He holds an MA in international relations from Johns Hopkins University's SAIS Program.

Signature Topics

The Technology Dilemma: Move Fast, Be Bold, Do No Harm
The promise of technology and data-driven innovation is central to companies’ growth strategies. Yet, the blistering pace of change and increased concerns about trust are complicating how boards govern the opportunities and risks created by transformative technologies like genAI. Van der Oord will discuss boards’ need for stronger, more dynamic oversight, improved knowledge, and capacity to engage in meaningful discussions, understand what’s coming around the corner, and create strategy-centered and risk/opportunity-balanced governance. When a board resets its governance fundamentals —rather than taking a fundamental reset of its governance—the payout is clear: the company uses technology in a way that creates more value and earns more stakeholder trust.

Boardroom Balancing Acts
Rarely has the business environment seemed so promising and yet so unpredictable. Innovation is unleashing new opportunities and sustaining business confidence and economic growth. At the same time, concerns such as inflation risk, tariffs, geopolitical volatility, and social unrest—in the United States and globally—are expected to persist. Boards face a number of difficult, strategic governance balancing acts, including going on offense or defense (or both), committing to a long-term strategy in a short-term world, and maintaining board focus amid expanding governance scope. Van der Oord helps boards and their companies to expect the unexpected, by providing insights on how to strengthen their—and their company’s—capacity to balance a series of competing pressures.

Other Topics

The Board’s Role in Cyber and Data Security
For decades, cyber risk was considered the domain of the technology C-suite and data a thing to be managed, protected, and siloed off. However, today, both are core business priorities, each with tremendous power to create competitive advantage and destroy trust. Today, boards have begun to see cyber and data security for what it is: a strategic, enterprise risk, for which they share great responsibility. Van der Oord will help boards and their companies to answer this critical question: “Are we ready for today’s threat and opportunity landscape and what’s to come?”

Culture Is a Corporate—and Boardroom—Asset
As a board leadership expert, Friso van der Oord describes culture as “the sum of the shared assumptions, values, and beliefs that create the unique character of an organization.” While it is often perceived as a soft issue, it is a truly hard issue—both in the sense of having concrete impact and of being difficult to assess. Boards have a responsibility to bring more rigor to discussions about organizational culture, especially in today’s dynamic business environment.