Views from the Chair – PwC Malta’s Governance Survey
Growing business in this post-pandemic world of inflation, energy and supply chain crises makes for an incredibly challenging governance landscape right now. In addition, in Malta we are still adjusting to a new normal in terms of regulatory pressures and local compliance.
Phil Views from the Chair – PwC Governance Survey 2022, we sought to explore current local governance practices and whether they are able to meet these challenges. It is a collection of real world data from inside the boardrooms of equity issuers listed on the main market of the Malta Stock Exchange. These include a wide variety of businesses operating in a number of industries, some much more regulated than others. In contrast to some other jurisdictions, most of these entities are not significantly dominated by widespread ownership and often include family or state ownership even after listing.
During the summer of 2022, PwC Malta surveyed the views of the Chairpersons of these listed entities, and sought to better understand the current corporate governance practices in the following key areas:
- Board composition and diversity
- Board practices and effectiveness
- Shareholder, investor and stakeholder engagement (including ESG issues)
- Corporate culture
- Strategy and risk
- A post-pandemic world and the changing Business Landscape
The data was collected through a list of questions discussed with 82% of the Presidents of the 32 listed equity issuers. As this was done mostly through personal interviews, the Chairpersons were provided with a forum to expand on their answers and volunteer their views on issues that are important to them.
We have chosen to explore the views of Presidents as in practice, they are often the administrators of governance standards. Furthermore, their role is increasingly under the spotlight in a time of leadership crisis.