In the third episode of our Boardroom Governance Summit series, Sabastian Niles, President and Chief Legal Officer at Salesforce, and Jackie Liu, partner at Morrison & Foerster and a board member at CEVA, discuss board leadership at the pace of change. Recorded in Healdsburg, California, on August 27, 2026.
(00:00) Introduction and about the inaugural Boardroom Governance Summit
(1:59) Collaborative Board Leadership: strengthening collaboration among directors and with management
(4:36) Moving Beyond Pattern Recognition: shrinking decision windows, comfort with ambiguity, and approaching disruption with a beginner’s mind.
(7:52) Board Focus and the Governance Gap: why more information does not necessarily produce better decisions
(11:30) Navigating AI Regulation: conflicting rules across jurisdictions, practical judgment calls, and focusing on the regulations most relevant to the business.
(13:36) Trust as a Driver of Innovation: why companies cannot wait for regulatory clarity to build trust, and how trusted technology can accelerate adoption.
(15:35) The Board as a Strategic Asset: constructive engagement with management, access to leaders across the company, and adapting committee responsibilities to emerging risks.
(18:00) Scenario Planning and The Art of the Long View: challenging the assumptions behind business plans and deciding where to lead, where to follow, and where to wait.
(19:36) Fiduciary Duties in the AI Era: why these duties remain unchanged, even as directors confront new technologies and risks.
(22:53) AI Policies for Directors: why a board’s AI policy should be tailored to directors’ responsibilities.
(23:30) Mission-Critical Risks and Oversight: revisiting risk priorities, applying an all-of-board approach to AI governance, and allocating responsibilities across committees.
(27:32) Governing the Agentic Enterprise: distinguishing augmentation, automation, and autonomy, with clear boundaries, human override, and accountability.
(31:25) AI Agents and Liability: asking where agents operate, whether their decisions are material to the business, and how responsibility is allocated when something goes wrong.
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Sabastian Niles is President and Chief Legal Officer at Salesforce.
Jackie Liu is a partner at Morrison & Foerster and serves on the board of CEVA, a Nasdaq-listed company.
Recorded at the inaugural Boardroom Governance Summit in Healdsburg, California, on August 27, 2026.
Join us for the next Boardroom Governance Summit, August 25–27, 2027, in Healdsburg, California. Register here.