Over the last few years, aspects relating to sustainability and the ESG criteria have turned into critical factors for commercial enterprises to consider, and as a result supervisory board agendas have been devoting more and more attention to them. This year, in general, positioning the company to be fit for the future counted among the central topics addressed by supervisory boards. Additionally, globally persistent geopolitical instability and supply-chain disruptions, triggered by bottlenecks, unrelenting inflation and energy pricing, continue to dominate in the German corporate landscape.
But what has this meant for supervisory boards and the work they do in concrete terms? What further topics are defining supervisory boards' agendas at present? How are these topics impacting the skills and expertise profiles of supervisory boards? And what significance does the greater professionalisation of supervisory board work have in times of crisis? Together with AdAR, the Arbeitskreis deutscher Aufsichtsrat e.V. (German Supervisory Board Working Group), we explored these and many more questions in this year's supervisory board survey.