ASB Research Series
The ASB Research Seminar Series (RSS) is a monthly series hosted by ASB that invites academics and professors from various universities worldwide to give talks and share insights about their research and ongoing work. They engage in discussions on various research topics with ASB’s esteemed researchers and faculty members, receiving feedback and comments on their work.
ASB RSS are now in hybrid mode and are usually held at lunchtime.
If you would like to present at and/or attend the ASB RSS please contact the Research Office: research@asb.edu.my
Upcoming Talks
Date/Time
Speaker
Title & Abstract
How do great business leaders learn to navigate complexity, cultures, and real-world decision-making? For Andrew Foley, an alumnus of the Asia School of Business (ASB) inaugural MBA Class of 2018 and now Assistant Professor of Management & Organizations at New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business, the answer lies in Action Learning.
Reflecting on his journey from ASB student to academic, Andrew shares how the school’s distinctive learning approach—combining rigorous classroom education with hands-on industry projects across Southeast Asia—equipped him with the ability to think strategically while understanding the human and cultural dimensions behind business decisions.
His experiences working with companies in the region reinforced the importance of listening to stakeholders, embracing diverse perspectives, and developing solutions that create lasting value. Andrew also highlights Southeast Asia’s rapidly evolving business landscape as an exceptional environment for aspiring leaders to gain practical, global business experience.
Read Andrew Foley’s inspiring journey and discover how the Asia School of Business prepares future leaders to “think across worlds.”
Originally published by The Exchange Asia.
Thinking Across Worlds: How the Asia School of Business Shapes Future Business Leaders
Featured by AVPN’s Inspired Asians, Inspiring the World campaign, Professor Melati’s work highlights how data and research can improve outcomes for refugees, vulnerable communities, and underserved youth across the region.
For communities that are often left out of formal systems, visibility matters. Without reliable data and community insight, the needs of refugees, stateless populations, vulnerable groups, and underserved youth can remain difficult for decision-makers to fully understand.
This is where Professor Melati Nungsari’s work is making an impact.
Through the ASEAN Research Center (ARC) at the Asia School of Business, Professor Melati uses real-world data, research, and cross-sector partnerships to support more inclusive public programs across Southeast Asia. Her work, recently featured in AVPN’s Inspired Asians, Inspiring the World campaign, focuses on turning evidence into practical insights that can help shape stronger systems for communities that are often underserved.
Her collaborations include work with UNHCR Malaysia, community groups, NGOs, ministries, and other partners to better understand the needs of families fleeing crisis. Her work also extends to youth empowerment, including financial literacy training for 500 low-income youths.
By connecting research with action, Professor Melati’s work reflects Asia School of Business’s commitment to producing knowledge that is not only academically rigorous, but relevant to real challenges across the region.
How Professor Melati Nungsari Is Using Evidence to Drive Inclusion Across ASEAN
Refugee youth in Malaysia share their hopes, fears and dreams, highlighting the need for empathy, dignity and greater understanding beyond stereotypes.
DO we truly understand how deeply our words can wound people already living with uncertainty, rejection and displacement?
Too often, when refugees enter public conversation, they are met first with suspicion rather than understanding. Their presence is questioned, their intentions are doubted and their belonging is treated as something to be debated.
But perhaps our opinions would change if we looked more closely at refugee youth. Not as a problem to be debated but as young people trying to grow up, make friends, support their families and find a sense of belonging in a country they now call home.
I would like to share some reflections from refugee youth of various backgrounds who have been living in Malaysia for some time. These are not just statistics, policy issues or stories of displacement. They are young people with thoughts, worries, hopes and emotions that are often left unheard.
In Malaysia, many refugee children grow up outside the formal education system. They rely heavily on community-based learning centres run by refugee communities and NGOs.
Their lives are shaped not only by school but also by uncertainty, financial hardship and the everyday struggle to find belonging in a society that too often rejects them, overlooks their humanity or sees them only through fear and suspicion.
Yet, when we listen closely, we realise that many of their concerns are not very different from yours and mine. In a short writing activity in refugee learning centres, we asked refugee youth aged 13 to 18 to open up about what was on their minds.
We asked them one simple question: What bothers you?
Their answers were honest, personal and deeply human. They wrote about family dynamics, friendship dilemmas, personal struggles and their hopes for a more meaningful future. Each story had its own ups and downs.
Some wrote about arguments with friends. Others wrote about feeling misunderstood by their parents. Some expressed sadness, anger, loneliness and confusion – emotions that many young people experience while growing up.
But some of the writings went even deeper. They asked questions about identity and belonging: Who am I? Am I Pakistani, Rohingya or Myanmar? Will I ever find a place to call home? Why am I living through so many troubles at such a young age?
“I am worried about myself because in the future, my life would change – whether it would be good or bad. I hope my life will be better,” said a Rohingya refugee youth.
These are not easy questions for any child or teenager to carry. For many refugee youth, growing up is not only about school, friendships and family. It is also about uncertainty, displacement, poverty and the constant feeling of being in between places.
Yet, their writings were less about pain. Many also wrote about love for their families, dreams for the future, gratitude, ambition and the hope of becoming someone meaningful one day. They wanted to study. They wanted to help their parents. They wanted to be seen as more than just “refugees”.
We often forget that while refugee youth experience suffering, it is not their entire identity. They are also children and teenagers with humour, talent, imagination and dreams.
Listening to refugee youth goes beyond an act of kindness. It is a reminder that public conversations about refugees should be guided by empathy, dignity and the recognition that these are young people who are growing up in Malaysia too.
When we listen to them, we begin to look beyond labels. We stop seeing only “refugees” and start recognising young people trying to make sense of their lives under difficult circumstances.
Perhaps the first step is simple: listen.
Listen, not to respond with judgement but to understand. Listen not with pity but with empathy. Listen because behind every label is a young person with fears, hopes and aspirations of their own.
Before we ask why they are here, whether they belong or what they might take from us, perhaps we should ask what hopes they carry, what futures they imagine and what we might learn if we finally listened.
Jeron Joseph
Postdoctoral Scholar
Asean Research Centre
Asia School of Business
Originally published by The Sun.
Refugee Youth: They Too Have Dreams
The Asia School of Business (ASB), in collaboration with MIT Sloan Management, hosted its Action Learning Summit 2026 under the theme “The Action Learning Advantage,” bringing together students, faculty members, alumni, industry partners and corporate hosts for an afternoon of discussions, project showcases and networking centred on experiential learning and leadership development.
The Summit showcased the institution’s distinctive Action Learning model, which integrates real-world business challenges into academic learning and enables students to move beyond traditional classroom-based education.
The Summit officially began with welcome and opening remarks by Professor Sylvia Ng, Faculty Director of Action Learning and Associate Professor of Marketing, who highlighted the transformative impact of experiential education and the value of industry partnerships in developing future-ready leaders.
Learning Beyond the Classroom
A key highlight of the programme was the Action Learning Project Showcase, where participants explored how students tackle real-world business challenges through hands-on projects that deliver practical and actionable solutions for partner organisations.
The Summit reinforced Asia School of Business’s belief that leadership and business acumen are best developed through experience.
“What does an MBA look like when learning leaves the classroom?” the institution noted. “At Asia School of Business, our students don’t just study business challenges — they step into them.”
From warehouse floors and strategy discussions to interviews, observations and collaborative late-night team sessions, students participating in the Business Practicum with SnT Global Logistics were challenged to think critically, adapt quickly and learn through direct experience.
The practicum reflects Asia School of Business’s Action Learning philosophy, where students apply academic concepts to real business environments while working alongside industry partners to solve complex operational and strategic challenges.
Insights from Industry Leaders and Practitioners
One of the key highlights of the summit was the Action Learning Panel, which brought together industry leaders, Action Learning coaches, alumni and students to discuss the impact of experiential learning on leadership development and business problem-solving.
Bringing together perspectives from across the Action Learning ecosystem, the panel featured industry host Sarah Grasset, Vice President of The Lost Food Project; Action Learning Business Coaches Alok Mishra, Chief Executive Officer of Value Edition, and Johan Khoo, Associate Partner at EY Malaysia; Michelle George Tan, Assistant Vice President at Twin Tower Ventures and an alumna of Asia School of Business’s MBA Class of 2024; and Denni Chu of Asia School of Business’s MBA Class of 2026, who shared insights from a student perspective and moderated the discussion.
The discussion explored how Action Learning creates value for students, host organisations and business partners, offering perspectives from those directly involved in the programme. Panellists shared experiences on tackling real-world business challenges, fostering innovation through collaboration, and developing leadership capabilities in dynamic business environments. The session also highlighted the long-term benefits of industry-academic partnerships in preparing future leaders to navigate increasingly complex organisational challenges.
The Action Learning Advantage
The Summit reinforced Asia School of Business’s commitment to its “Action Learning Advantage”, a learning model designed to bridge theory and practice while developing adaptable, industry-ready leaders.
Through immersive experiences, students are exposed to dynamic business environments that demand critical thinking, collaboration, innovation and decision-making under real-world conditions. By working directly with organisations across industries, participants gain practical insights that complement their academic studies and prepare them for leadership roles in an increasingly complex business landscape.
As demonstrated throughout the Summit, Action Learning remains a cornerstone of the Asia School of Business experience, empowering students to learn by doing, solve real business problems and create meaningful impact for organisations and communities alike.
Those interested in learning more about Asia School of Business’s Action Learning methodology and academic programmes can visit www.asb.edu.my to explore how the institution is shaping future leaders through experiential, impact-driven education.
Originally published by The Exchange Asia.
Exploring The Action Learning Advantage At The Asia School Of Business Action Learning Summit 2026
KUALA LUMPUR 2 JULAI – Asia School of Business (ASB) memperkenalkan inisiatif pendidikan eksekutif baharu melalui Bahasa Executive Education Program (BEEP) yang memberi penekanan kepada pembangunan kepimpinan dalam Bahasa Malaysia tanpa mengurangkan standard global latihan pengurusan.
Program itu dibangunkan sebagai sebahagian usaha ASB untuk menggabungkan kecemerlangan pendidikan eksekutif berteraskan bahasa pengantar Inggeris dengan pendekatan lebih bersifat tempatan melalui penggunaan Bahasa Malaysia bagi memenuhi keperluan sektor korporat dan awam di negara ini.
ASB menyifatkan BEEP sebagai kurikulum yang telah direka semula khusus untuk dunia korporat dengan pendekatan lebih praktikal berbanding teori akademik semata-mata.
Program berkenaan menggunakan kajian kes tempatan serta simulasi praktikal bagi memastikan peserta dapat memahami cabaran sebenar organisasi dalam konteks Malaysia secara lebih menyeluruh.
Antara bidang utama yang diberi penekanan termasuk tadbir urus korporat, kepimpinan dan pengurusan, teknologi termasuk kecerdasan buatan (AI), kelestarian serta geopolitik.
“Keperluan untuk menguasai strategi peringkat tinggi dalam Bahasa Malaysia adalah satu kelebihan strategik, khususnya dalam kalangan syarikat berkaitan kerajaan (GLC), perusahaan kecil dan sederhana (PKS) serta agensi kerajaan.
“Pendekatan ini turut dilihat mampu mengurangkan jurang komunikasi antara perancangan strategik peringkat global dengan pelaksanaan operasi di peringkat tempatan, sekali gus meningkatkan keberkesanan membuat keputusan dalam organisasi.
“Program BEEP juga memberi penekanan kepada pembelajaran berasaskan tindakan iaitu pendekatan yang membolehkan peserta menyelesaikan isu sebenar organisasi sepanjang tempoh latihan dijalankan,” katanya dalam satu kenyataan.
Menurut ASB, antara konsep utama yang diketengahkan termasuk “Global Inquiry, Local Heart” serta pendekatan “Action Learning” yang digunakan dalam penyelesaian cabaran korporat sebenar.
Dalam perkembangan berkaitan, ASB mencatat pencapaian penting apabila buat pertama kali menyertai ‘Financial Times (FT) Executive Education Custom Rankings’ dan terus mencatat kedudukan ke-94 di peringkat global.
Lebih signifikan, ASB menjadi institusi pertama di Malaysia yang berjaya memasuki penarafan berprestij tersebut yang terus mengukuhkan kedudukan dalam ekosistem pendidikan eksekutif antarabangsa.
Pencapaian itu mencerminkan tahap kepercayaan tinggi daripada rakan korporat pelbagai sektor yang terlibat dalam pembangunan program latihan eksekutif ASB.
ASB berkata penggunaan Bahasa Malaysia dalam pendidikan eksekutif bukan sekadar soal bahasa, tetapi merupakan kelebihan strategik dalam memperkukuh kefahaman serta pelaksanaan keputusan di peringkat organisasi.
“Penguasaan strategi dalam bahasa ibunda membolehkan pemimpin membuat keputusan dengan lebih jelas, pantas dan relevan dengan konteks operasi sebenar organisasi di Malaysia.
“ASB kekal komited untuk memperkukuh pendidikan eksekutif berimpak tinggi yang menggabungkan perspektif global dengan keperluan tempatan,” katanya.
Originally published by DagangNews
Asia School of Business Perkenal Program Eksekutif Bahasa Malaysia, Fokus Kepimpinan dan Strategi Korporat
For Andrew Foley, Asia School of Business (ASB) MBA Class of 2018, business education was never only about mastering frameworks or analyzing numbers. It was about learning how organizations make decisions in the real world, how people respond to change, and how leaders can move between ideas, cultures, and practical realities.
Today, Andrew is an Assistant Professor of Management & Organizations at New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business, where he teaches Strategic Management. His path into academia was shaped in part by his time at the Asia School of Business, where he was part of the inaugural MBA class. Before joining ASB, Andrew was a Venture for America fellow in New Orleans, working with incubators and accelerators to support startups and strengthen local entrepreneurial communities.
After two years of working closely with emerging businesses, Andrew wanted to deepen his understanding of organizations in a more formal academic setting. He was considering either an MBA or a PhD in business when ASB caught his attention.
“What drew me to ASB was its focus on Action Learning,” Andrew shared. “I liked the idea of being able to study organizations and also be working alongside them during my studies.”
That combination of classroom learning and direct engagement with companies became one of the defining parts of his MBA experience. Through Action Learning, Andrew was not only studying how executives and team leaders solve complex problems. He was seeing those decisions unfold in real business environments, with real stakeholders, constraints, and competing interests.
One of the classes that left the strongest impression on Andrew was strategy, taught by MIT Professor Pierre Azoulay during his time as a visiting professor at ASB. For Andrew, it was the first academic experience that pushed him to think deeply about the various factors determining whether some organizations survive and thrive even as their industries evolve.
Those insights continue to shape how Andrew studies organizations and approaches his work as an academic. Today, he teaches strategy at NYU Stern, a role that reflects the lasting impact the course had on both his intellectual development and his journey into academia.
Beyond the classroom, Andrew’s Action Learning experience in Thailand offered another powerful lesson. He worked on a project with a major big-box retailer that was trying to understand how to encourage people to spend more time in large retail spaces instead of community-based markets such as wet markets and local fisheries.
At first glance, the business case seemed straightforward. Larger retail spaces offered more control, consistency, and regulation. But as Andrew and his team spent time communicating with people, they began to understand that customer behavior was not driven by convenience or price alone.
People’s shopping habits were tied to daily rituals, cultural practices, and relationships with their communities. “I spent most of my time not doing fancy data analysis, we were just talking to people.”, he reflected.
For Andrew, this became one of ASB’s most valuable lessons: business decisions do not happen in a vacuum. They happen in organizations filled with people, perspectives, and competing priorities. Learning how to make decisions is important, but learning how to implement them in a way that people can understand, accept, and support is just as critical.
“As you go through that process, you develop a really good intuition for not only how to make good decisions, but how to implement them in a way that will create value for everyone involved,” he said.
That intuition has stayed with him. Looking back, Andrew says ASB helped him become more comfortable identifying not just the best idea, but the idea that could realistically work within an organization.
When asked, “In one sentence, how would you describe ASB?” Andrew answered that ASB teaches you to “think across worlds.” As an MBA student, he was in a new country, surrounded by a global student body, and partnering with companies across Southeast Asia. That experience required him to understand perspectives that were unfamiliar, and sometimes perspectives he did not immediately agree with.
For Andrew, that skill remains deeply valuable. It is the ability to listen, interpret, and solve problems through someone else’s lens, especially when the problem is complex, expensive, and tied to different cultures or organizational realities. It’s also a key strategic concern: diversification decisions, competitive interactions, and many others depend on the ability to take the cultural and behavioral perspectives of stakeholders to create value for organizations.
He also sees Malaysia, and Southeast Asia more broadly, as a powerful place to study business today. The region, he noted, is in a dynamic phase of growth and change. It is globally integrated, but also renegotiating its role in relation to the rest of the world. There is a lot of upskilling, movement out of traditional supply chain roles, and growth into headquarters-type functions. With industries moving up the value chain, companies expanding their mandates, and new forms of digital payment reshaping how people do business, the region offers MBA students a front-row seat to transformation.
For Andrew, Malaysia remains memorable not only because of its business environment, but also because of its people and culture. He still remembers seeing the Petronas Twin Towers for the first time, describing the moment as “magical.” He also spoke about Malaysia’s warm and collectivistic culture, the ease of finding community, and, of course, the food, including nasi lemak, roti canai, and rendang.
When asked what advice he would give to current and future ASB students, Andrew offered a simple but thoughtful framework: know which “hat” you are wearing.
In the classroom, he said, you should wear your student hat. Be diligent, because much of what you learn will become relevant in the real world. During Action Learning, however, you need to put on your company stakeholder hat. While much of what you learn in the classroom will be useful, you should avoid trying to apply every lesson immediately. Instead, listen carefully and stay open to the real needs of the company, understand what stakeholders want, and pay attention to what they are ready to allow.
For Andrew, the ability to move between those two roles is what makes the Asia School of Business experience so powerful. “If you can juggle between those two and go back with a certain degree of dexterity, you’re going to be fine,” he said. “And this is going to be one of the best professional experiences you’ve ever had.”
Thinking Across Worlds: Andrew Foley on Strategy, Action Learning, and the Asia School of Business Experience
By Gabe Shawn Varges, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Asia School of Business and Vice-Chairman GECN Group
Five Step-Ups for Boosting Board Performance Self-Awareness
Facing shrinking “runways” for making important corporate decisions, Boards need to innovate away from sluggish toward higher kinetic review and approval processes.
Historically, one salient function of the Board of Directors has been to ward off hasty or ill-considered material decisions by Management.
The idea is not that Boards should reflexively block or delay proposed corporate actions that appear too novel or ambitious, though more timid Boards sometimes tend in this direction.
Instead, the notion is that a Board may have to decelerate the approval process when information is incomplete or potential risks are not fully understood. As with regenerative brakes in electric vehicles, the art lies in applying just enough pressure to slow down but not halt the momentum. This may be the case when the company, for example, is seeking to expand into an unprecedented business area and the Board feels it needs more time to properly weigh all factors.
For many Boards this tempering role has been a comfortable one. It fits with the image of the Board as a deliberative and reflective body which takes the time to take the long-term view and make discerning decisions. Yet this Board role, while fundamental, is coming under growing tension.
The tension is not emerging from regulators. On the contrary, authorities – who tilt toward risk averseness – continue to expect Boards to be the safety backstop against any ill-advised Management proposals.
The pressure for accelerated decisions instead stems from the rapidly changing dynamics in the local and global marketplace, shorter innovation cycles, and a more volatile international arena.
For example, customer and other stakeholder expectations can now shift unexpectedly, hastened by the currents of social media. A competitor can put a new product out in months, not years. Geopolitical tensions can upend supply chains and investor confidence from one day to the other. A war can – as has happened with airlines in the current environment – shut out profitable routes and force on the spot pivoting by Management. Aided by AI, due diligence for contemplated transactions can be completed much faster than before, expediting the path to Board approval.
On top of all the foregoing, CEO tenures are shrinking.[1] This is forcing Boards in some cases to scramble to appoint a new CEO on short notice, throwing a wrench into traditional succession planning.
In each of the above examples, Boards today are under pressure to rethink their decisional processes. What can we change as a Board to better keep pace with the quicker rhythms which Management is confronting in the market and the investor community?
To be sure, Boards are not being called to skip or reduce the quality of their oversight. Rather, they are expected to exercise this duty more swiftly and efficiently.
Four techniques can augment a Board’s ability to prepare for and take more timely decisions on enterprise-critical matters.[2]
1. Hone a Board Decisional Mindset
A first step is cultural. When Boards think about improving their culture as a body, they typically focus on what they do or should do, but less so on how quickly they do it.
For example, Boards rarely measure the time that elapses between major Management proposals and Board decisions. Yet this can be a helpful indicator in a world where the interval between a market opportunity arising and disappearing is compressing.
To respond, Boards can make it a priority to cultivate a decisional mindset, one where the goal is to curtail as much as is prudently safe the time from analysis to decision.
In Board assessments, for example, the Board’s progress in this area can be tested. Questions like these help identify what may be encumbering the Board in taking decisions:[3]
- Do we engage in overdeliberation?
- Are there any specific matters (e.g., joint ventures, closing less promising business lines, making key executive appointments, etc.) where we exhibit decision-taking inertia or hesitation?
- Has there been any specific instance of the Board, or one of its committees, displaying in effect analysis-paralysis or decidophobia?[4]
- Are we committed, as a matter of our Board culture, not to be the obstacle that unduly delays needed corporate decisions?
- Are there any Board members who tend to sit on the fence in the face of tough decisions or show more eagerness to debate and critique than to decide?
2. Re-examine and Lubricate Board Processes
A second step starts by reviewing the Board’s foundational documents.
A Board charter serves well the purpose of setting out a Board’s mandate and responsibilities. But, alone, it is usually insufficient to address how the Board and its committees carry out their work.
If part of the goal is to make the Board’s work fitter for today’s higher-paced environment, then a Board operational book or similar can serve this purpose. Such a document, when aptly designed, allows capturing the essential work processes and methods of the Board.
Many Boards already are guided by such an operational document. But typically, it has not been reviewed critically from the angle of how well it supports time-sensitive decision-making. For example, the Board could ask:
- Does the operational book prescribe any processes that are unwieldy?
- Are there any which, while on their face adequate, could benefit from streamlining so as to speed up outcomes?
- Are there any that in practice already are being sidestepped or ignored in the face of new time realities?[5]
If any of the above are true, then the Board has an excellent opportunity to retire non-value creating processes and “lubricate” the remaining ones to reduce process friction.
This may include reviewing the authority tables that sometimes are included in the Board’s operational book. Such tables typically set out for which kind of matters a Board has the right to
- simply be informed in advance by Management
- provide input
- decide.
Without compromising its ability to exercise oversight, a Board can re-examine the authority tables and make adjustments that serve the goal of decisional efficiency.
For example, is any prescribed spending or other threshold (above which Board approval is required) no longer fit-for-purpose? Is there any matter that could be shifted from the “Board decides” column to the column the “Board gives input” or simply “is informed”, without thereby weakening checks-and-balances?
3. Design Fluid Board Cycles and Decision-Prone Agendas
A Board of a long-standing company has usually developed over the years patterns of when it meets, for how long, and what matters come before it at which meetings.[6] Known sometimes as the Board workplan or Board cycle, such procedural habits bring a degree of order and help Management and Board members know when to expect what.
But in an environment where velocity is paramount, some of these practices may be unduly time-consuming or promote rigidity. Consequently, it is of value to re-assess periodically these practices through the lens of fostering adaptability and rapid response capacity.
A start is to identify what practices are remnants of the past and may no longer be serving timely decisional needs.[7] Next the Board can review meeting agendas from recent years. What priorities do such agendas reflect? How can the agenda topics be reordered going forward to reflect the company’s shifting strategic priorities?
Typically, the above exercise triggers some resistance. It requires Board members (and Management) to accept changes to the traditional sequence of topics at Board meetings throughout the year.
But for true nimbleness, better planning is not enough. Board members also need to embrace improvisational agility. For example, as new risks or opportunities unfold, the Board may need to alter meeting topics or meeting dates, even on short notice. Less dynamic Boards perceive this as disruptive. Nimble Boards see it as indispensable for navigating the twists-and-turns of the external environment.
In addition to fluidity in the cadence and topics of Board meetings, another area where pliability is called for is the length of meetings.
For example, rather than planning for all Board meetings to be X number of hours, a more adaptive approach contemplates meetings of varying durations, depending on the agenda items. This approach also accepts impromptu time adjustments as needed.[8] For, in an accelerated world, a Board cannot postpone to the next Board meeting a matter requiring resolution simply because time ran out at the present meeting.
The structure of Board meeting agendas can also be reengineered to promote decisional energy. For example, rather than putting housekeeping and other routine items early on the agenda, a decision-focused approach places these at the end, permitting the Board to tackle up front matters requiring a Board decision.
In shaping decision-prone Board agendas, Management also has a role to play. Some CEOs and other senior managers do not always signal clearly enough in the documentation they submit to the Board what the “ask” is. Do they simply want to inform the Board of something? Get an indirect “no objection” to do something? Or are they looking for an unequivocal yes or no?
Further, Management does not always “tee-up” a matter in a way that facilitates the Board decision. For example, when seeking approval for a new company strategic alliance, senior managers may be so eager to secure the Board’s support that they emphasize only the advantages of the deal. But for a Board to feel comfortable deciding quickly, it needs to see upfront a balanced account of the risks and trade-offs.[9]
4. Use Decision Accelerators
A Board’s decisional agility can be further enhanced with targeted actions designed to step up the tempo. These can be applied during three phases.
a. Pre-Meeting Phase
By crafting a decision-prone agenda, as discussed earlier, a Board signals to its members that the upcoming meeting’s time will be largely devoted to applying judgement and reaching key decisions, not going over Board materials. The presumption will be that each Board member will have studied the materials before the meeting and will not divert meeting time with peripheral questions.
Management too can help during the pre-meeting phase by making itself available to take on specific Board member questions. More advanced is the practice where Management gives the Board access to the project reporting platform or dashboard that Management itself uses to track, for example, progress on a proposed transaction.
Boards in companies subject to particular market time pressures or volatility may also innovate by establishing a Board Fast-Track Standing Committee or similar. Such body or working group is given pre-approved authority parameters and springs into action whenever certain decisions become necessary before the full Board can meet.
For example, while a Board ultimately may need to approve material finance transactions, the Fast-Track Standing Committee may be given the authority to green-light urgent letters of intent for such transactions or narrow down the specific decision that the full Board will later need to make.
Instead of creating a new body, the Board could give carefully delegated authorities to one or more of its existing committees. For example, the Audit Committee may be given the authority to sign off on emergency communications to a regulator when the full Board or the Board Chair is not available.
b. Meeting Phase
Once the day for the Board meeting has arrived, the Board Chair plays a pivotal role. His or her leadership will be essential in ensuring the Board acts with alacrity and reaches the necessary decisions before adjourning.
This may require conventional techniques such as setting time limits for questions and briskly steering debate toward the decisions to take.
With eyes on the clock, the skilled Board Chair might make on the spot decisions to cut off unproductive exchanges. Or the Chair may force accountability by going around the table and polling each Board member directly: “if you had to vote now, would you vote yes or no on the proposed transaction?”.
But when complex matters are at hand, the traditional methods may not suffice. Some topics require deeper dives than is possible within a scheduled Board meeting time. In such a case, a Chair may borrow from other disciplines and apply the technique of concurrent decision making.[10]
Under this practice the Chair breaks up the full Board meeting and directs the Board committees to sit in parallel and each tackle separately one aspect of, for instance, a proposed acquisition. At an appointed hour, the committees’ members return to meet again as one Board and report on their recommendations for the assigned part. The Board Chair then calls for consideration of the recommendations and lines up the matter for a final, unified Board vote.[11]
Another technique also calls for strong Board Chair leadership. If during the Board meeting tensions arise between the Board and Management (or among Board members) that could put at risk the Board coming to a timely decision, the Chair makes an instant call and orders that the Board meet briefly in private session (i.e., without any executives present). This approach helps diffuse the tension and permits Board members to align right away on a common view.
A final decision accelerator involves revisiting the notion of consensus. Many Boards, as a matter of culture, prefer to act based on the consent of all Board members. But this principle can stand in the way of swift decisions or lead to compromises that might not be in the interest of the company.
Where a Board is not culturally ready to accept simple majority vote,[12] it can innovate by, in effect, redefining consensus. For example, it might agree that quasi-consensus, such as a three-quarters supermajority, is also an acceptable Board norm which, even those who dissent, are willing to embrace for the sake of Board unity.
c. Post-Meeting Phase
When the Board has been unable to reach a major decision at the scheduled Board meeting, it can decide to promptly meet again or, alternatively, use written procedures to finalize soon thereafter the desired decision.
Where legally permitted, so-called circular resolutions allow the Board to document the decision by simply having each Board member confirm by email or otherwise in writing his or her support for it.
But perhaps the most practical post-meeting step Boards can take is to get ready for further decisions ahead. The Chair may keep track of the decisional pipeline of expected or potential – even if not necessarily likely – decisions the Board may need to take over the next months. Such a pipeline increases the Board’s forward thinking and decisional readiness.
Conclusion
In a business environment of increasing time compression, Boards cannot escape having to take weighty decisions at a higher tempo and under severe time constraints.
Boards cannot render their judgement at their own rhythm, such as waiting until the next scheduled Board meeting. They need to decide when the opportunity or risk presents itself.
Since delaying or abstaining from deciding could be as value destroying as making the wrong decision, Boards need to step up to the challenge.
This includes reviewing the Board’s internal processes to make them more pliable as well as holding smarter, higher kinetic, decision-prone meetings. But it also involves being more accepting of taking decisions with incomplete or evolving information.
In the end decisional nimbleness is not about skipping any duties as a Board. It is about learning to carry out these duties with a sense of urgency. Rapidly moving markets do not allow the luxury of time. Boards need to act responsibly without taking the business out of the fast lane.
Endnote
- On the topic of CEO tenures, see studies referenced in G.S. Varges “5 Step-Ups for Boosting Board Performance Self-Awareness”, Asia School of Business, November 2025.
- The question is not how Boards can agree more often with Management or approve their proposals at a higher rate. The issue is how Boards can bring to bear their decisional authority with higher velocity and clarity. In the author’s work with companies, the more common complaint by Management is not that the Board outrightly stops Management proposals but “slow walks them”. For some CEOs this may reflect hesitancy by Board members to accept the accountability that comes with a prompt and clear approval or disapproval. Whatever the reason, when a Board lingers on decisions it leaves the company in limbo and delays a repositioning toward new directions and opportunities.
- The questions can be asked with regard to the entire Board or any of its committees.
- Decidophobia is the acute fear of making a wrong choice. Some individuals deliberately delay or avoid taking a clear position, until having no choice. They tend to prefer the perceived safety of non-commitment. For how this phenomenon applies in a management context, see M. Sostar, “Decidophobia as a Limiting Factor of Management”, Interdisciplinary Management Research VII Conference, May, 2011.
- One example is where the operational book prescribes for Management to submit materials to the Board no later than, for instance,10 business days of a Board meeting. While the Board certainly benefits from having advance time to review materials for its meeting, inflexible deadlines such as these can work against the need for decisional vigor.
- This article does not address the phenomenon of many Boards and committees finding more meetings necessary. On that topic see, for example, G.S. Varges “The Adoptive Borders of the Compensation Committee”, Journal of the Network of Innovative Corporate Governance, December, 2023.
- One Board, for example, had as a rule of thumb that presentations from control functions should be twice yearly and not exceed 30 minutes. The consequence of this inflexibility was that the risk officer felt he could not timely inform the Board about emerging risks or had enough time—in rushed presentations – to truly sensitize the Board to these risks. The result was a Board that did not always recognize on time when it needed to act.
- One practice is to build in a time buffer in the schedule of all Board meetings. This way each Board member knows in advance that the meeting could be X, less than X, or X + the time buffer.
- Another practice is for Management to list the alternatives it considered and why it chose instead the option it is presenting to the Board for approval. For some CEOs more problematic, but for Boards useful, is the practice of disclosing to the Board any strong minority views among Management. Do any members of Management have serious reservations about a proposed alliance or favor another alternative? Which of their concerns could be relevant for the Board in forming its decision?
- The notion of parallel decision-making processes can be found in concurrent engineering and agile project management frameworks.
- For this approach to work and not rekindle time-consuming fresh debate, the Board has to agree to give deference or at least the benefit of the doubt to the recommendations made by each committee.
- Legally, in most governance systems a Board can of course act using simple majority vote. In practice, however, may Boards seek a degree of harmony by striving for consensus where possible.
Also published by The Exchange Asia.
Nimble Decision-Making: An Unfolding Board Competence
European politicians, think tanks and media have been ramping up the narrative of so-called “trade imbalance”, claiming that Chinese industrial subsidies, weak domestic demand and fierce domestic competition have created “overcapacity” and led to a widening surplus with Europe.
Chinese exports, according to them, are a “threat”. The remedy from Brussels is “rebalancing” and “de-risking”.
But when I sat down with European business leaders over the past months, I have heard the other side of the story, one of deepened commitment and, in particular, continued confidence.
For much of the past two decades, Europe exported high-end machinery, precision instruments, luxury goods and automotive technology. China exported consumer electronics, textiles and assembled manufactured goods. Each side occupied a distinct tier in the global value chain.
That era is over. China’s manufacturing capability has made a huge leap into sectors that have long been Europe’s industrial heartland — electric vehicles, batteries, renewable energy equipment, advanced machinery, and increasingly, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
Chinese companies are no longer just suppliers to European firms; they are now direct competitors in the same global markets. For many politicians in Brussels, this shift spells danger. But the European executives I spoke with see it differently. To them, competing in China is not a liability, but a proving ground.
“China is like a fitness club,” Denis Depoux, global managing director at Roland Berger, told me. “Foreign companies have to be competitive, have to move quickly, and have to bring the most cutting-edge innovations to China,” he said. “But if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”
The very competition and cooperation that Brussels frames as a threat is, for European businesses, a source of global advantage. The pressure to innovate, the speed of iteration, the scale of the market don’t weaken European firms; they sharpen them.
Rogier Janssens, president of Merck China, put it more directly.”We look at China not just as a market,” he said. “We see China as a production base and, in particular, a base for innovation.”
He pointed to China’s “2.0 version” of opening-up as “not just about enabling multinational companies to access the Chinese market, but empowering them to collaborate in innovation.”
Business leaders I met are fully aware that in the industries that will define the next decade, China is not just a market to be accessed. It is a competitor to be matched, and a partner to be engaged.
Jean-Christophe Tellier, CEO of multinational bio-pharmaceutical firm UCB, told me: “Collaboration, AI, plus the culture and mindset of testing, experimenting, changing and pivoting, make me feel that if change comes in the future, it is likely to come from China.”
As the world’s significant economies, China and the EU are deeply intertwined. The real question is not whether to engage, but how to engage. European companies are already voting with their feet.
Joseph Cherian, President and Dean of the Asia School of Business, noted that “Businesses can’t afford not to be in China. Not because it’s huge, but because it’s very likely where the future is being shaped.”
The question is whether Brussels will listen or continue to pursue a strategy that serves neither its industrial competitiveness nor its geopolitical interests.
Originally published by China Daily.
Illusory China ‘Threat’ Claim a Classic Own Goal
On 24 June 2026, our CEO, President, and Dean, Joseph Cherian, delivered the keynote address, From Oversight to Foresight: The Board’s Role in Guiding Strategy, Governance, and Value Creation in an AI-Driven World, at the FIDE Forum Executive Forum, organized in collaboration with ICAEW.
Addressing board directors and senior executives, he examined how artificial intelligence is reshaping strategy, governance, and value creation, arguing that boards must move beyond traditional oversight to exercise informed judgement in guiding AI adoption. Drawing on real-world examples, he explored the evolution of AI, its implications for financial decision-making, emerging governance challenges, and the leadership principles required to ensure AI delivers sustainable value while remaining ethical, accountable, and aligned with organisational strategy. The presentation slides are available for viewing below.
Remarks by Dean Joseph Cherian at FIDE Forum
On 18 June 2026, Dr. Joseph Cherian delivered Perspective on Pensions in Singapore: On Building a Sound Retirement Scheme at the Vietnam Roundtable: Pensions and Investments: Move to a New Era, organised by Asia Asset Management in Hanoi. Bringing together policymakers, regulators, pension experts, and institutional investors, the forum explored the future of retirement systems across Asia.
Using Singapore’s Central Provident Fund (CPF) as a case study, Dr. Cherian examined how well-designed retirement systems can address the three fundamental risks facing retirees: income adequacy, longevity, and inflation. He discussed how the CPF combines mandatory savings, government-backed guarantees, and lifelong annuities to provide financial security throughout retirement, while highlighting the broader principles of sound pension design that can help countries build resilient, fiscally sustainable, and equitable retirement systems. The presentation slides are available for viewing below.
Remarks by Dean Joseph Cherian at Asia Asset Management- Perspective on Pensions in Singapore