The intersection of artificial intelligence, leadership and ethical governance took center stage at the 22nd Annual Corporate Governance Conference, presented by the Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance at the Naveen Jindal School of Management. The event — its theme was “Intelligence” — was held Oct. 16 in the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center. Speakers explored how AI is reshaping business — and how essential it is for board members to take the lead in its responsible implementation.
Dr. Hasan Pirkul, Caruth Chair and Jindal School dean, was in attendance and welcomed the audience, which numbered 125. He said that the AI sessions in the conference were crucial for the audience, composed mainly of corporate board members, for understanding how to use them properly in business.
“We are at the forefront,” he said. “I am an IT (information technology) guy. I went to business school for my doctorate… So, it is no wonder that our school is highly technology focused. And so last year when AI kind of exploded — generative AI exploded in everybody’s consciousness — there was a big discussion in the University on whether we should make it illegal to use… and I told my folks, I said, ‘Listen, I want you to use it and I want you to teach your students how to use it.’”
In a session titled “AI Great Power Competition,” Igor Jablokov, CEO & Founder of Pryon, spoke about how AI is necessarily transforming business strategies and how boards can get a handle on decision-making processes related to AI. He was interviewed by David Kohl, IECG Advisory Board member and partner at Mangrove Investments.
Jablokov pointed out that AI is a powerful tool for enhancing (not replacing) human capabilities and giving companies that use it a competitive advantage and offered advice to business students and future leaders on how to use AI to become disruptors rather than the disrupted.
“I think it’s going to be a force multiplier,” he said. “And that’s why the perspective is to ensure that the students have access to these technologies because… right now, we’re at the dawn of the intelligence age. When it was the dawn of the information age, the only folks that lost their jobs were the middle managers that couldn’t figure out how to use computers… the folks that are going to be disrupted, you’re going to be disrupted by an accountant that knows how to use AI and a physician that knows how to use an AI and a chemist that knows how to use AI, so on and so forth.”
One of the problems associated with using AI within the context of business, Jablokov said, is its inability to have human emotional intelligence.
“My mother was asked to paint an abstract painting for my birthday,” he said. “And when the paper was torn off the painting, I looked down at a painting of a dog. And so that’s the problem with AI prompting AIs. They give you what you want, but true artists give you what you need instead. Because that was my pet of 14 years who passed away and she knew how dear it was to me as well. So that emotional component that humans have, you’re never going to find in these AIs.”
Jablokov explained that strict ethical guidelines would need to be introduced and enforced.
OpenAI “crawled the whole internet,” he said. “They didn’t care about copyright… they followed the Uber model — let’s move fast, break things.”
To maintain integrity, businesses cannot use the popular, out-of-the-box generative AI models because they need to maintain a tight grip on the content found within them.
“That’s why our (commercial AI products) can be in nuclear power plants, in hospitals, in air bases and things of that sort,” he said. “It can’t be the stuff that the (business-to-consumer) folks are cooking like the Googles, the Apples and everything else. Those are the toys. (Our products are) the stuff that you can trust to operate your business and things like it.”
Building on Jablokov’s discussion of the business case for ethical AI, the next presentation — “AI’s Impact on Institutional Trust” — took a deeper dive into the necessity of establishing a comprehensive ethics strategy before moving forward with AI implementation.
Dr. Rita Kirk, William F. May Endowed Director of Cary Maguire Center for Ethics & Public Responsibility and Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor of Department of Corporate Communications & Public Affairs at SMU, was introduced by Dennis Cagan, IECG honorary advisory board member and principal, president and CEO of Caganco Incorporated. Kirk explored the ethical dilemmas created by the corporate use of AI.
“AI systems can analyze vast amounts of data and make decisions in milliseconds, far outpacing our human capacities to do the same thing,” she said. “So anywhere from stock trading to supply chain management errors or biases can propagate at unprecedented rates, potentially eroding trust before we even recognize that there’s a problem.”
When AI bots are used as the first point of contact, Kirk added, then human interaction, from the corporate side anyway, is bypassed completely. This approach fundamentally transforms how a company builds trust not only with the consumer but also with its own employees.
“This data-centric approach is raising critical questions about privacy, consent and the ethical use of personal information, all of which are fundamental to trust,” she said. “Additionally, we’re seeing new terms to describe how data is being used by nefarious actors. Terms like ‘model usage,’ ‘model leakage’ and ‘data poisoning’ are becoming part of our current lexicon. We also have noticed that there is a redistribution of labor. AI is not just automating tasks, it’s reshaping entire job categories. This shift is altering the social contract between employers and employees and challenging us to maintain trust as we transform into these workforce negotiations.”
Kirk said that it is critical for companies to develop ethical principles that guide AI development.
“AI systems should not unjustifiably subordinate, coerce, deceive, manipulate, condition or herd humans,” she said. “Instead, they should be designed to augment, complement and empower human cognitive, social, and cultural skills.”
The conference also provided insights into governance of family-owned businesses, emphasizing how to effectively implement succession plans. Emily Neubert, SVP & National Director of Ultrahigh Net Worth Services at AllianceBernstein and Richard Weaver, Senior National Director of Executive Services at the Institute for Business Owners & Corporate Executives at AllianceBernstein, were the speakers. Their presentation — “Challenging Assumptions: Best Practices For Creating a Lasting Family & Corporate Legacy” — tackled the challenges, and opportunities, found in leadership transitions by offering strategies for ensuring business continuity and preserving family values.
“Family governance is a system of policies and procedures that allow families to successfully make collaborative decisions, to communicate and to resolve conflict, all with the hopes of managing shared assets,” Neubert said. “And in a lot of cases, that shared asset is a business. What it leads to, a lot of what we talked about, having that regular structured communication, the openness to participate, making sure people feel comfortable having a voice. Even if someone in the family is not a part of a business, but they benefit from the business, shouldn’t they be involved in the meetings where they’re informed of what’s going on, where they understand potential changes in the business, where they understand where you’re making investments in the business, making sure there’s alignment within the family?”
The conference concluded with Timothy Reazor, EMBA’18, this year’s Max Hopper Leadership Speaker who is founder and CEO of Fifth & Cherry. Each high-end cutting board his company makes has a serial number and intended to be passed down among generations as heirlooms — the company will even refinish it for free. Reazor highlighted the importance of innovation, reinvention and resilience in entrepreneurship. Tony LeVecchio, IECG advisory board member and president and owner of The James Group, Inc. introduced Reazor.
Reazor emphasized that reframing business challenges is a key to success.
“Reframing is incredibly powerful,” he said. “Reinvention… It’s really important to understand that whatever it is you’re trying to do — raise money, drive your business forward — that the reinvention of simple things can lead to explosive growth.”
Reazor shared his deep commitment to delivering a product that lives up to the promises his brand makes. For him, Fifth & Cherry is more than just a company name — it implies trust.
“It takes a lot to create them and I couldn’t keep them in stock,” he said. “And I realized what was really happening was that a brand is a promise. See what I was creating isn’t a product. I’m creating a brand. I’m creating something that you can fall back on.”
In the early days of his company, Reazor showed one of his cutting boards to Jackie Kimzey, MBA’77, an associate professor of practice in the Organizations, Strategy and International Management Area at the Jindal School who was the Max Hopper Speaker in 2021.
“So I go up and Jackie looks at the board and he says, ‘what is that?’” Reazor recalled. “And I said, well, it’s a cutting board. He goes, ‘Tim, that’s not a cutting board. It’s a gift. Go figure it out.’ And I ran away. I’m like, ‘All right, let me go figure this out.’ The cutting board market’s $131 million deep. The gifting market is $136 billion deep. ‘Oh, I need to sell these as gifts.’ No one sells their cutting boards as gifts. You’ve never heard the concept of a cutting board as a gift? But I get videos at least once a month of somebody crying when they open up my box because of how touched they are….”
Gregg Ballew, a professor of practice in the Jindal School’s Accounting Area and executive director of the institute, said that its vision is to be the go-to governance group for corporate management, boards, and stakeholders.
“We focus our efforts on connecting the dots among management, board members, shareholders, and stakeholders,” he said.” We help these groups build better corporate governance systems through our offerings of thought leadership to institute members and the corporate governance community.”
He said the annual conference is a cornerstone of the institute’s programming.
“We are always happy to learn when one of our participants generates that one idea that provides productive intelligence that can be applied over the following years,” he said.
