Governance beyond the corporate boardroom
In September 2024, Knowa CEO Amédée Levillain joined a panel of governance experts at the NACD Northern California Chapter to explore a question that sounds straightforward but rarely receives the attention it deserves: do nonprofits need board governance?
The event, hosted by the National Association of Corporate Directors, brought together panellists including Evelyn Dilsaver and David Windley, with moderation by Melinda Yee Franklin. The discussion covered board composition, succession planning, crisis preparedness and the role of technology in nonprofit governance.
Knowa sponsored the event, which took place at the NACD's Northern California chapter and is available to watch in full.
The problem of board amnesia
A recurring theme in the discussion was what the panel described as board amnesia: the loss of institutional knowledge when board members rotate, executive directors depart or governance records are scattered across email inboxes and shared drives. For nonprofits, where board turnover is often higher and administrative resources leaner, this problem is acute.
The panel noted that when an executive director leaves a nonprofit, their donor relationships and institutional knowledge frequently leave with them. Succession planning in the nonprofit sector is not merely a leadership question but a governance one, because the continuity of the organisation's decision-making record depends on infrastructure that outlasts any individual.
This is the same structural problem Knowa addresses in the pension trustee market, where trustee boards face compressed meeting cycles, high information volumes and the constant risk that institutional memory degrades with each change in personnel.
Technology as governance infrastructure
The discussion highlighted that technology, particularly AI, is increasingly relevant to nonprofit governance. The panel identified several ways in which technology can optimise resource use, streamline board responsibilities and address the amnesia problem.
The NACD Northern California chapter itself uses Knowa as its board portal, leveraging the platform's AI-powered search and summarisation capabilities to support both its executive team and board members. As the event summary notes, the platform centralises knowledge, streamlines onboarding for new directors and integrates documents, meeting packs and third-party applications for seamless operations.
The broader governance conversation
Amédée's participation in the NACD panel reflects Knowa's growing role in the governance technology conversation beyond pensions. While the platform's core market remains UK pension trustee boards, the governance challenges it addresses (fragmented records, compressed decision cycles, the gap between legal duty and operational reality) are not confined to any single sector.
The event also touched on the relationship between nonprofit and corporate board service. The panel noted that nonprofit boards can serve as a pathway to public board positions, with the governance experience and professional networks built through nonprofit service creating opportunities for future corporate appointments. Effective governance, the panellists agreed, is transferable.
The full event recording is available on YouTube, and more details can be found on the NACD Northern California event page.
See how Knowa is shaping the governance technology conversation.