Periodic musings
We talk about leadership maturity. Operational maturity. Cultural maturity. We rarely talk about governance maturity. But your board has a hierarchy of needs just like everything else — and most are stuck somewhere between survival and safety, calling it strategy.
Read MoreBuilding on my last article about the challenges facing SMEs considering global expansion, I wrote about the challenges of hitting the “ethical compliance wall.”
The "Ethical Compliance Wall" is the point at which an SME's global growth is no longer limited by sales or logistics, but by its ability to provide legally auditable proof of its environmental and social impact.
In 2026, the era of "voluntary reporting" is effectively over. Large multinationals are now legally liable for their entire supply chains, meaning they are aggressively offloading their compliance burdens onto their SME partners.
Read MoreThe dream of global expansion has fundamentally shifted. That "low-cost, high-speed" playbook of the past decade has been replaced by one with a focus on the "high-resilience, high-compliance" reality. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the barriers to entry are no longer limited to finding a distributor of a local salesperson; those barriers include navigating a fragmented geopolitical landscape and meeting rigorous new digital and ethical standards.
Read MoreThe bankruptcies of four biotech companies are a tragedy of governance as much as finance. They remind us that in the venture ecosystem, the stability of a startup is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain of capital. For the next generation of founders, "knowing your investor" must include knowing who is investing in them.
Read MoreThere are lessons to be considered in Hilton’s response to one of their franchisees' refusals to serve federal agents earlier this month in Minnesota.
Background: A franchise property (under the Hilton/Hampton brand) gained media attention when it was reported that it canceled reservations for federal government employees tied to the recent anti-immigration efforts. Hilton quickly stripped the hotel of its branding for refusing service to federal agents.
For leaders of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), this is not just a "big brand" problem. It is a cautionary tale about how decentralized operations can create reputational issues that need to be swiftly addressed.
Read More
