How to build an adaptable board to serve evolving organisational needs

As organisations seek to hone their agility and stay afloat on an unpredictable geopolitical tide, advisory boards need to display their versatility to respond.

Extreme weather events, war, financial markets volatility and trade policy disruption are factors forcing organisations to rethink their operations. In this climate, an advisory board is an adaptable entity. Distinct from boards of directors, advisory boards have no binding decision-making authority or executive function in an organisation, so their make-up and mandate can and should be defined and revised to serve an entity’s evolving needs.

Marianne Perkovic GAICD is the founding member of Workday’s APAC International Advisory Board (IAB), inaugurated a year ago. Since then, the US-based global AI cloud platform for managing organisational finance, people and planning has added Singapore-based Gerard Lee, who has four decades of experience in executive financial-industry roles, to its APAC IAB.

For now, the Workday APAC advisory board has two members, with Lee largely responsible for guiding the development and growth of the business in Asian locations and Perkovic identifying opportunities for the Australian and New Zealand businesses, while mentoring and supporting executives to capitalise on the region’s potential. A key requirement of the board at formation, says Perkovic, was that, “Workday wanted someone with CEO experience who could help its executives and navigate them through times of change.”

Tricky times demand integration

Within six months of establishing a board framework and momentum — “quarterly meetings and monthly check-ins” with the APAC team —  geopolitical upheaval and the parallel pace of change experienced among Workday’s customer base led to adjustments to enable a more frequent, and responsive information flow. Perkovic and Lee now attend existing meetings in their geographical centres. “Instead of more formal structures, the advisory board sits in on any management meeting and weekly updates, to hear information as it’s happening on the ground,” says Perkovic, also chair of Eticore and a non-executive director for Insignia Financial Group and Teachers Mutual Bank.

In uncertain times, a more frequent and informal engagement focused on channelling immediate information works better. At board level, “you normally wouldn’t get that kind of closeness, because of the governance requirements,” she says. “[That flexibility] has allowed us to identify issues a lot more quickly and we’re able to work alongside our management teams to support them as needed.”

Developed to help organisations adapt to change, Workday joined the Fortune 500 in 2024 and says it is used by more than 60 per cent of other companies on the same list. Workday’s 20,000 employees cater to a huge variety of organisations, including other tech giants, non-profits, energy and resources companies, government bodies, financial services, manufacturing and transportation companies.

“Geopolitical issues have probably proven APAC’s resilience to a lot of what’s happening in the US and Europe,” says Perkovic. “Workday already had a focus and investment in growing the region, and that continues. We haven’t had a shift in overall strategy because APAC had already been identified as a growing market.”

To date, says Perkovic, the Workday IAB direct approach and coaching have positively dialled up two key practices.

Timely updates

The first is providing clients with useful advice at the right time. “This is something all businesses need to change,” she says. 

“Previously, we might have had quarterly check-ins with customers on how the platform is performing. Now, as we hear things on the ground — and if we think it represents an improvement to the strategy of any one of our customers — we speak to them on the phone. The frequency of connecting with customers has improved and accelerated. 

“It’s created more work for the Workday team, but it also means they’ve been able to pivot with client strategies. More agile working with customers has proven to be good.”

Client feedback

Second is utilising more insights from the customer base. “The beauty of Workday is that it has almost 10,000 customers around the world solving similar issues,” says Perkovic, citing upskilling employees to work with AI insights and the challenges of managing multigenerational workforces as issues Workday addresses. 

“Our teams are connecting like-minded businesses and conducting workshops to facilitate resolving shared challenges. The clients like it because they can become very centric to their own business and it [shared problem-solving] helps them to build an external network.”

The APAC IAB has had a productive first year, but while rocky geopolitics have created a playground for the agile, Workday’s opportunities lie in winning over businesses that doggedly adhere to established systems.

“I’ve also been working with my APAC teams to accelerate some opportunities, but a lot of it can come down to conservative boards or the huge processes of some businesses,” says Perkovic. “My biggest challenge is how our teams can navigate these big bureaucracies, to get to decision-makers and help them implement the solutions they need.”

Often, many stakeholders are involved. “To progress a deal or get an implementation, you’ve got to have the CFO, the people manager, the chief IT officer, the risk officer. Stakeholder management is what I’m trying to help them with.”

Closing the gap between skills development and industry needs

Dr George Panas’ aim in forming the UniMelb Advisory Board for Operations and Supply Chain Management Area was a twist on the stakeholder theme. He wanted to bring a multitude of stakeholder perspectives to bear on the curriculum and research activities of the supply chain team within the University of Melbourne’s Business and Economics faculty.

The timeframes for curriculum development can pose a challenge for teaching at the cutting edge of relevance to the working world. In business faculties, the rapid pace of change in technology and the geopolitical environment can mean working in constant catch-up mode.

Panas is Enterprise Fellow and Director of Engagement at the university’s Department of Management and Marketing. He transitioned to the university sector after 25 years in industry and senior management.

Universities want to have greater impact beyond academia. As in any organisation, relevance to their ultimate customer base — such as employers and policymakers — is crucial. “When we do research, we want it to be relevant to industry and society’s needs,” says Panas. “When we’re teaching, we want to ensure we’re developing graduates most able to respond to what industry requires of them.”

The urgency for organisations to develop resilience in the face of upheaval began during COVID, which also gave Panas the inspiration to structure a responsive, largely online-based advisory board. Previous faculty boards had been hamstrung by rigid meeting structures. Online tools have allowed him to tap into far-flung expertise and make participation easy.

Panas outlines two principles he applied to assembling an effective board of advisers.

Diversity and time efficiency

Panas estimates a third of the 14-member advisory board were sourced from among his contacts. He then built out the group for the greatest geographical and industry diversity. “We have people based in Asia, Europe, the US and Australia — from retail organisations, government, shipping lines, consulting firms, hospital services, procurement, trucking and manufacturing.”

The second principle is — organise to have the lightest touch on board time. This is critical to ensuring participation rates. When recruiting board members, he emphasises he will contact them twice a year with a range of questions. “They can answer them in their own time in the survey I set up. Or if they’re in Melbourne, we can have a chat for an hour. For the participant, it’s very efficient. They can choose the method that best suits them. From my perspective, given it is a survey, even if I informally meet with someone, I enter their perspectives in the survey, so everyone’s input is collated in one place.”

Panas says he gets at least a 90 per cent response rate from his advisers.

“As on any advisory board, these are very senior people in their disciplines. A couple might come back and say, ‘I forgot to do it, give me another week.’ Another might simply suggest that we chat on the phone.”

Convenience is key. Those with more flexibility in their schedules also speak at faculty-run conferences, present to classes or assist researchers in targeting their work for relevance. “It’s up to them,” says Panas.

Driving smarter supply chain reaction

In advance of the university’s annual Supply Chain Conference, one of the questions put to the UniMelb advisory board was around hot topics industry and students should consider. This year, responses have centred around, “How AI and genAI are transforming supply chains for greater efficiency, sustainability and resilience in terms of geopolitics”.

Despite corporate sustainability efforts and the lessons of COVID disruption to established supply chains, Panas says many companies still don’t know much about their suppliers’ suppliers or where the risks lie.

Such intelligence is integral to improving sustainability in terms of environment and social impact. AI tools (he cites ChatGPT) can help enterprises map their global supply chains, identify risky links and suppliers, and test their options should different geopolitical scenarios eventuate.

Participating in an advisory board is one way to help shape a successful future for organisations in disrupted times. “People are becoming more curious and interested in advisory board positions,” says Perkovic. “And we can see different models of operation emerging.”

This article first appeared under the headline 'At the pointy end of policy' in the August 2025 issue of Company Director magazine.