Karen Francis and Penny Herscher: The Chairs' View of a Changing World

(0:00) About the Boardroom Governance Summit (Aug 26-27, 2026) 

(1:17) Intro

(2:45) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.

(3:31) Start of interview. 

(4:39) AI and Governance Today

(5:34) Data Center Politics (reference to moratorium by New York State)

(6:48) About the 3rd Rome Conference on AI, Ethics and Governance

(9:06) AI Hype and Job Fears

(14:45) Birth and focus of The Chairs Circle and Limerick Lane Cellars.

(22:53) CEO Succession Lessons

(30:58) Founders versus Boards

(37:04) EVs and China’s Rise

(44:58) Semiconductors, Chips and Geopolitics

(49:03) Boards in a Fractured World "[W]e now need to have engaged board members, board members who are curious, who read, who stay up to speed on things, who keep asking more questions. You cannot have directors who are just calling it in anymore."

(53:31) Government as Shareholder

Karen Francis DeGolia is a board member at Vontier, CelLink, and NAUTO. Penny Herscher is a board member at Lumentum, Penguin Solutions, Forvia SA, and Modern Health.

You can follow Evan on social media at:

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License