Online Onboarding: Corporate Governance Training in the COVID-19 Era

Onboarding new directors is critical in the best of circumstances. What should organizations do when training new board members must be completed online? COVID-19 has forced both ordinary and extraordinary business functions to be conducted primarily online, and online onboarding may be necessary or preferred in a number of business contexts. This Article first reviews the best practices in director onboarding and explains the functional goals of those practices. It then explains how to leverage the power of virtual data rooms and virtual conference software to successfully onboard new corporate directors with virtual meetings. These strategies apply to both for-profit and non-profit boards and can be employed to enhance any online meeting or conference where the goals include informing and engaging participants while encouraging them to socialize.

Keywords: board of directors, COVID-19, coronavirus, online, virtual, learning, teaching, education, online meeting, onboarding, new directors, director training, COVID, virtual data room, VDR

JEL Classification: K1, K22, M12, M14

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Oranburg, Seth and Kahn, Benjamin, Online Onboarding: Corporate Governance Training in the COVID-19 Era (July 12, 2020). Duquesne University School of Law Research Paper No. 2020-09, Arizona State University Corporate and Business Law Journal, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3648687 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3648687