Supply Chain

The kitchen sink committee – AI, Cyber, ESG, and now, tariffs. Are Audit Committees ready?

Leave a Comment / AI, Boardroom, Energy Transition & Sustainability, Governance, Supply Chain /

Audit committees have long been the mandated nexus of corporate financial reporting, internal controls, and risk management. Even though these committees face a full slate of topical oversight and compliance – financial, internal audit, AI, cyber, ESG, Sustainability, DEI – 2025 has also brought forward a new suite of risks. Namely, trade and tariffs, and geopolitical conflict. With so much responsibility across a broad spectrum of issues, have audit committees become the “kitchen sink” of corporate boards?

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Board series: Markets moving faster than board skills – Facing the hard reality of AI, ESG, supply chain, and cyber

Leave a Comment / AI, Boardroom, Energy Transition & Sustainability, Governance, Supply Chain /

In the next decade, the most competitive companies will be governed not by the most prestigious resumes, but by boards engineered for complexity. U.S. boardrooms are re-skilling under pressure from four converging forces: (i) AI deployment and risk, (ii) supply chain and ESG regulation that reaches deep into suppliers, (iii) increasing geopolitical tensions, and (iv) heightened investor scrutiny of board capability, disclosure, and refreshment. In 2025 and beyond, governance sophistication is no longer optional – it is a determinant of market value, stakeholder trust, and competitiveness.

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Management briefing: How to test – and build – rapid switch-back supply chains for a world where the rules keep changing

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In Q2 2025, tariff volatility and regulatory shifts have evolved from a “trade” concern to a core business performance variable. For management teams, the implications reach across finance, operations, and strategy. The companies that outperform are those that treat regulatory shocks as operational scenarios to rehearse, not surprises to react to.

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Board series: Stress testing supply chains in a fractured world – The case for rapid-switch back planning

Leave a Comment / Insights, Supply Chain /

In Q2 2025, tariff volatility and regulatory shifts have become a defining force in enterprise strategy — no longer a “trade” issue, instead a board-level risk. The most sophisticated multinationals are now deploying structured stress-testing frameworks to model “policy shock” scenarios: tariff spikes, export control expansions, carbon border pricing, and compliance detentions. These models link granular HS-code exposure, supplier geography, and product carbon intensity to real-time profit-and-loss simulations —quantifying the margin at risk and working capital requirements under each regulatory outcome. For directors, the strategic question is shifting from “Where should we produce?” to “How fast can we re-position when the rules change?”

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EcoVadis Brief: Case Study – How Tessy Plastics turned EcoVadis into a revenue growth engine

Leave a Comment / Industrials & Manufacturing, Insights, Supply Chain /

For small and mid-sized manufacturers, sustainability assessments like EcoVadis can initially seem like compliance hurdles. However, for Tessy Plastics, a U.S.-based injection molding company, embracing EcoVadis became a catalyst for significant business transformation and revenue growth.

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Management Briefing: The next frontier — How AI is transforming supply chains into a strategic asset

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The passage of The Big Beautiful Bill (OBBBA) on Friday, July 4th, marks a decisive recalibration of U.S. clean-energy policy and incentive structure—elevating urgency, compliance, and strategic flexibility for corporations. The upending of financial incentives create a real-time operational challenge. Boards must respond by aligning capital schedules, fortifying supply chains, and taking out cost from their decarbonization strategies. How should enterprises evolve their capital allocation for operational effectiveness, ESG targets, and financial return?

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Board series: Self-driving supply chains – How AI is reshaping multinational operations for resilience, agility, and profitability

Leave a Comment / AI, Governance, Insights, Supply Chain /

Geopolitical volatility, shifting trade policies, and rising tariffs are redefining supply chain risk. More than ever, agility and transparency raise to the top of board and management’s priorities. Generative artificial intelligence offers powerful tools—predictive insights, scenario modeling, and real-time visibility—that can help enterprises anticipate shocks, ensure compliance, and sustain continuity. Moreover, agentic AI will allow companies to deploy “self-driving” supply chains to hasten decision-making and realize greater benefits of timeliness, cost-containment, and more. The challenge for directors is not whether to adopt AI, but how to govern its integration: ensuring management has the data infrastructure, talent, and oversight to capture value.

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Board series: Navigating the storm – Global shipping in turmoil

Leave a Comment / Boardroom, Insights, Supply Chain /

With broad policy upheaval in the U.S. under President Trump’s second term, Sustainability Committees on corporate boards stand on shaky ground. The administration has effectively terminated and significant allocations for renewable energy, retreated from the Paris Agreement, spurred ESG-backlash, weakened the EPA, NOAA, and SEC mandates. At the same time, the global momentum for ESG and Sustainability persists. Even if the political momentum is going in one direction, board members will have to balance the reality of climate, social, litigation, and governance risks remain financially material and globally governed.

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Board series: The India imperative – Geopolitics reshape industrial supply chains

Leave a Comment / Boardroom, Supply Chain /

With broad policy upheaval in the U.S. under President Trump’s second term, Sustainability Committees on corporate boards stand on shaky ground. The administration has effectively terminated and significant allocations for renewable energy, retreated from the Paris Agreement, spurred ESG-backlash, weakened the EPA, NOAA, and SEC mandates. At the same time, the global momentum for ESG and Sustainability persists. Even if the political momentum is going in one direction, board members will have to balance the reality of climate, social, litigation, and governance risks remain financially material and globally governed.

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Management Briefing: When trade policy hits the balance sheet – Navigating impairment risk in a volatile environment

Leave a Comment / Boardroom, Supply Chain /

Recent shifts in U.S. trade policy—particularly the return of tariffs under President Trump—are more than a political issue. They’re a material business risk. Higher input costs, reduced demand, and overall macroeconomic uncertainty are forcing multinational companies to revisit financial projections and stress-test their assumptions. One area now under pressure: impairment testing for non-financial assets such as property, plant, and equipment (PP&E), intangible assets, and goodwill.

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