By: Van Soul Addey
Mindful Governance has successfully convened the maiden edition of
The Company Secretaries’ Summit, a full-day premium gathering that brought
together company secretaries, legal counsel, board directors and senior
governance professionals from across Ghana’s public, private and state-owned
sectors.
Held at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra under the theme ‘Governance
as Value Creation’, the summit was designed to elevate the standing of a
profession that sits at the very centre of corporate decision-making, yet has
long operated without a dedicated national platform of its own.
“The company
secretary sits between the board, management and stakeholders, and sets the
conditions in which the most consequential decisions get made, from what
reaches the agenda to when it arrives there. That is the level at which these
professionals operate, and the summit was built to match it. We brought board
directors into the room as well, because the relationship between a board and
its company secretary does a great deal to determine whether an organization
succeeds or fails, and the two sides rarely get a setting where they can speak
candidly about it," said Catherine
Engmann, Founder and Managing Director of Mindful Governance.
The morning plenary opened with remarks from The Registrar of
Companies, Maame Samma Peprah, Esq., who stated that while artificial
intelligence can strengthen compliance monitoring, board administration and
regulatory analysis, it cannot replace the professional judgement, ethical
leadership and independence that define the company secretary’s role. “As
organisations adopt new tools such as artificial intelligence, strong
governance frameworks will be critical to ensuring innovation is responsible
and value-creating,” she said.
Effective corporate governance, the Registrar said, is a
competitive advantage in attracting investment, not merely a legal obligation.
The keynote address was delivered by Karl George, MBE, Founder and
Chief Executive Officer of Governance AI, who led delegates through a working
session on artificial intelligence and its implications for the boardroom.
Mr. George introduced the ‘three A’s’ of AI adoption — automation,
augmentation and agency — and issued a pointed warning on ‘shadow AI’, the use
of unapproved AI tools by employees on personal devices, which he described as
one of the most urgent and least understood risks facing organisations today.
“Boards cannot effectively govern technologies they do not understand. Building
AI literacy among directors and governance professionals is now essential to
responsible decision-making,” he noted. He urged governance professionals
to raise their own AI literacy, arguing that boards cannot responsibly oversee
technology they do not understand.
For her part Charlotte Kesson-Smith Osei, Esq., Chief Executive
Officer of Cyrus Law, challenged the long-held view of governance as a
compliance burden.
Governance, she told delegates, is not a handbrake on the
organisation but a steering wheel, the mechanism that allows a business to move
quickly, navigate difficult corners and arrive safely at its destination. “The
greatest value of governance lies in creating environments where the right
questions are asked, difficult conversations are encouraged and organisations
are able to make decisions that stand the test of time,” she said.
She cautioned that at the root of almost every major corporate
failure is a boardroom in which protective voices were silenced, ignored or
absent.
Ms. Engmann
facilitated the Board Dynamics Mastery plenary, which used the Contribution
Compass framework to examine how the differing behavioural profiles around a
board table shape the way directors work together.
The afternoon
programme moved into three sector-specific breakout rooms. The private sector
room was facilitated by Adu Ampofo, Partner at Imara Gold, and Amakie
Strauss-Ashiabey, Deputy Company Secretary of Ghana Reinsurance PLC. The
state-owned enterprise room was facilitated by Joyce Boateng, Corporate
Governance and Regulatory Compliance Manager at GCB Bank PLC, and Sandra
Thompson, a Senior Corporate Governance and Legal Advisor. The service provider
room was facilitated by Samuel Kumi Ayim, Founder and Chief Executive of CTL
Africa Leadership, and Zoe Amarteifio, Manager at Trustee Services Limited.
Six professionals honoured
The summit climaxed with recognition of exemplary corporate
governance leadership across three categories. Six professionals were honoured.
They include:
Company Secretary of the Year (Private Sector)
Helen Amponsah Asare, KGL Group of
Companies Ltd
Paulina Akosua Danso, Esq., The
Royal Senchi
Rising Star (Emerging Professional)
Gertrude Assan, Esq., Mainstream
Reinsurance Limited Company
Bernice Yaa Sika Afful, First
Atlantic Asset Management
Board Secretary of the Year (SOE/Public Sector)
Trudy Lamptey, Labadi Beach Hotel
Susan Gbemu, Ghana National Gas
Limited Company
“Every professional recognised tonight has demonstrated that
governance done well is not a constraint on performance but a driver of it,”
Mrs. Engmann noted. “We congratulate them, and we thank the delegates and
partners who made this maiden edition possible,” she added.
Mindful Governance has confirmed that The Company Secretaries’
Summit and Awards will return as an annual fixture on Ghana’s corporate
governance calendar.
