My six years as a director and trustee on the board of London Metropolitan University have seen me serve in many roles and now that capacity comes free and I look forward to my next boards.

It takes both a willing, welcoming and committed board, and a committed board apprentice to make the experience worthwhile for both sides. Start with the "why?" and whether you are ready!

Leaders and boards must create a truly inclusive organisational culture before requiring or nudging the neurodiverse or other kinds of different persons to disclose their difference.

"Born" or "made" is a false dichotomy - nearly everyone is "born" with the potential to be "made". Whether they realise the potential is often a more complex function than dichotomies often cannot address.

The year widely if wrongly described as "post pandemic" has lessons for the what and the how of governance, BAU and business-as-unusual, and the changing nature of accountability.

Boards have an urgent need to focus on opportunity in climate action in addition to our continuing role in climate risk mitigation. The time is now.

If you want to drive change, don't drive alone. Identify your allies. Bring those allies with you. Let them ride shotgun.

Inclusion is not an "HR problem" but a strategic challenge for boards. The solution does not lie only in fixing how you hire but in committing to driving cultural change.

If you are a board director who lacks fluency in technologies, established or emerging, you may be failing in your duties as a director, perhaps without realising.

Governance is a contact sport that requires boards to understand the connective tissue of an organisation; which like the human body is sadly only noticed when it fails to deliver as expected. We can choose to take more conscious approaches to noting its role.