At a government agency, I met an internal auditor who was technically brilliant, had all the credentials. Knew every policy. But every board meeting, she was asked to “just present the audit plan and findings.” Then sidelined. I pulled her aside and asked, “Why don’t you present the risk strategy instead?” She replied, “That’s for the CEO and strategy people.” I laughed. That’s the problem. She didn’t own the seat. She borrowed it. Six months later, I coached her to repackage her reports: start with a business objective, show the strategic risk, highlight lost revenue or operational drag, and then…

Yesterday, 25th June 2025, I engaged with two different boards. The contrast was surgical. The first board invited me to sit in as they reviewed a strategy I had recently facilitated. These are my favourite sessions: not just because they validate the rigour of the strategy work, but because they reveal the board’s true character. You see the interplay where the Chair manages dissent without silencing, members reveal personal bets masked as fiduciary concern, and decisions are shaped by legacy, not minutes. It worked. The Chair steered with firmness and grace. They knew where the board added value, and more…

There was once a village plagued by livestock theft. So they hired a watchman. Each night, he locked the front gate, inspected the fence, and logged everything in his notebook. Every morning, he presented his report: “No breach. All controls in place.” Yet the goats kept disappearing. Turns out, the thief wasn’t breaking in. He was the trusted farmhand, walking out through the side gate, laughing at the audit reports. This is the tragedy of Risk-Based Internal auditing today. We are securing the gates our frameworks told us to monitor, while real risk walks out the side door of flawed…

I once visited a factory in Namanve where the manager’s office had no door. Not because the company was broke, but because, according to him, “I want to be accessible at all times.” Noble idea. Deadly in execution. Every five minutes, someone walked in. A supplier with an invoice. A technician with a broken switch. A clerk asking for airtime. At the end of my shadowing day, the manager had completed zero high-value work. He had traded accessibility for irrelevance. If you are always available, you are never effective. The problem is not the distractions. It is your tolerance for them. We glorify…

During a governance review at a top-tier insurer, the board chair routinely met department heads without informing the CEO.   Meanwhile, the CEO made sweeping HR decisions without board knowledge. Staff were confused. Executives were disoriented.   The board? Powerless. The insurer lost market share and senior talent. When Chair and CEO roles blur, an organisation drifts rudderless, leaderless, and exposed. Role confusion is governance sabotage Accountability breaks down when the Chair plays manager or the CEO becomes monarch. Most governance manuals list responsibilities, but ignore operational behaviour. The issue is not text, it is practice. Boards must stop assuming…

At a steel processing plant in Nairobi, the CEO invited the board to tour a newly commissioned mill, installed just six months earlier under their approved “five-year strategy.” What the directors saw shocked them: idle machines, rust already forming, and workers idle. The market had shifted, and China had dumped cheaper steel into the region, collapsing demand. One director sighed, “But we just approved this.” That is the fallacy. Strategy was treated as a one-time event, not a continuous discipline. Some boards feel they have done their part once they “approve the strategy.” But approval is not adaptation, and a strategy…