Course Highlights

• Interactive application-focused program delivered over three days leveraging MIT faculty, guest speakers, case studies, and application exercises while providing ample opportunities for networking with peers
• The course will help individual board directors and/or small teams from management boards increase their digital savviness and have more productive discussions around the opportunities and threats of the digital economy
• You will earn a certificate of completion from the MIT Sloan School of Management

Featured Content

Why attend Becoming a More Digitally Savvy Board Member?

Digital transformation involves rethinking how technology can be used to improve business models, value proposition, customer experience, operational efficiency, and more. This means innovating to deliver enhanced products, services, and customer engagement, but also means having a board of directors that is digitally conversant.

Findings from recent MIT research show that board members who understand the impact of emerging technologies on business success are helping companies outperform competitors. Having a digitally savvy board is the new financial performance differentiator. Digitally savvy boards help their companies move forward at a sufficient pace, advocating for change by supporting and sometimes nudging their CEOs.

Conversely, when a board lacks digital savviness, it can’t get a handle on important elements of strategy and oversight, and thus can’t play its critical role of helping guide the company to a successful future.

Course Experience

The in-person program is three days in length and is designed to set the foundation for board members to increase digital savviness in themselves and their colleagues as well as to have more productive discussions around the opportunities and threats the digital economy presents for enterprises.

Drawing on MIT-research, the module includes case studies, interactive exercises, and discussions. It provides a definition of "future ready" and how to get there, how companies will make money going forward, the role of the board in digital transformation, and making change happen in large enterprises.

Guest Speakers

Robyn Elliott
Robyn Elliott is a leading technology strategist with extensive experience in digital innovation and transformation. She has been at the forefront of assessing new technologies and delivering programs that upgrade the capabilities of organisations and improve strategic agility. Robyn has a focus on creating governance frameworks that capture growth opportunities as well as manage risk, and include ecosystem impacts across organisations, effective partnering and talent development. She has worked with organisations at all stages of maturity to establish strategies and governance that successfully navigate the challenges of continuous technological change.
Robyn’s career includes over twenty years of experience in Chief Information Technology Officer roles including Stockland property, Fairfax Media, Foxtel media and Merrill Lynch, as well as senior roles in IBM and Accenture where she led critical projects for clients across Australia and Southeast Asia. She has been a board member and advisor for several technology startups and set up a PropTech innovation lab. She is currently Chair of Phyllome, building fully-automated green plant factories using robotics, genetics and AI for a secure sustainable food supply.
Robyn holds a Master of Business Administration, Bachelor of Commerce, GAICD, and MIT’s Strategy and Innovation Executive Certificate.
 

Nora Lia Scheinkestel
Nora Scheinkestel is an experienced non-executive director, having served as chairman and director of both listed and unlisted companies for over 30 years, straddling almost every sector of the economy. She is presently a director of Qantas Airways Ltd, Brambles Ltd and Origin Energy Ltd. She chairs the audit and risk committees of Origin and Brambles and the remuneration committee of Qantas. 
Dr Scheinkestel has served as a steward of companies through economic cycles and through myriad corporate transactions. She has worked with organisations at all stages of development, often in heavily regulated industries and facing profound disruption in their markets. Many of the companies that she has been involved with have undertaken major transformation programmes, requiring both technological and cultural change and all needing to deeply understand the needs and wants of varied stakeholders, many of whom are also undergoing fundamental change in their environments.
Dr Scheinkestel’s background is as a senior banking executive in international and project financing. In her most senior role during this stage of her career, as head of the Project Finance Unit at Deutsche Bank, she was responsible for the development and financing of major projects in Australasia and South East Asia. She is a published author of Rethinking Project Finance – Allocating and Mitigating Risk in Australasian Projects which is based on research undertaken for her PhD.
Through her consulting practice, Dr Scheinkestel has assisted government, corporate and institutional clients in areas such as corporate governance and project and structured financing. Her governance work has involved mentoring chairmen and executive directors, establishing governance protocols as well as leading board performance reviews in a number of organisations.
Dr Scheinkestel was an Associate Professor at the Melbourne Business School (MBS) at Melbourne University where she lectured for over 20 years in the MBA, EMBA and SEMBA programmes as well as in executive education programmes.
Dr Scheinkestel was a member and acting President of the Takeovers Panel and is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. In 2003, she was awarded a centenary medal for services to Australian society in business leadership.
In her not for profit work, Dr Scheinkestel has been a mentor with the Kilfinan Australia Programme for not for profit CEOs since 2014 and is a foundation member of the Adara Panel, supporting Adara Group’s work in maternal, newborn and child health and remote community development.
 

Dottie Schindlinger
Dottie Schindlinger is Executive Director of Diligent Institute, the global corporate governance research arm of Diligent - the largest SaaS software company in the Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) and ESG space. She co-authored the book, “Governance in the Digital Age: A Guide for the Modern Corporate Board Director,” co-hosts, “The Corporate Director Podcast,” and co-created Diligent Institute’s Certification programs for directors and executives, including AI Ethics & Board Oversight. Dottie was a founding team member of the tech start-up BoardEffect, acquired by Diligent in 2016. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and is a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar Corporate Governance Forum.

Applying to the Course

We accept enrollments until the offering reaches capacity at which point we will maintain a waitlist. Many of the courses fill up several weeks in advance, so we advise that you enroll as early as possible to secure your seat.

You can begin the application process by using the red "Enroll Now" bar at the bottom of the screen.

Have Questions?

Contact Us if you would like to speak with a program director or visit our Frequently Asked Questions page for answers to common questions about our courses.

Please note, the faculty and guest speakers teaching in this program are subject to change based on the location of program delivery.