Real-Time Governance: The Evolving Role of the Modern Company Secretary

Modern Company Secretaries operate in an environment where governance is effectively "always on". Accountability to the board, visibility to regulators and markets, and responsiveness to internal teams have always been part of the role. What has fundamentally changed is the pace and visibility of those expectations.

In today's instant-access culture, stakeholders expect to be able to see the status of entities, filings and approvals from anywhere in the world, at any time. A director change that once took weeks of letters and manual coordination can now be initiated, executed and confirmed in days. For many stakeholders, that is no longer exceptional — it is the baseline.

The consumer experience has also rewired expectations. We order services, track deliveries and check facts in seconds. That "right now" mentality has naturally crossed over into corporate governance. Senior stakeholders now increasingly assume there will be a single place they can log in to see:

• Which entities exist and where
• What filings are due, in progress or overdue
• Who is responsible for the next action

It's worth asking: could you answer those questions today?

At the same time, AI and automation are reshaping how routine entity management work is done. At a recent Vistra event in London, Andrew Fairhurst, the former Director of Company Secretarial at Legal & General Group, anticipated that AI will move governance teams "up the value chain". Tasks such as assembling agendas or chasing late board papers can and should be handled by tools. That shift raises an important question for the profession: if the work that used to teach the basics is changing, how do Company Secretaries and their teams continue to build deep understanding?

Many governance leaders see this not as a threat but as an evolution. Boards and executives need more from governance, not less: earlier sight of risk, clearer recommendations and better navigation of complex structures and accountabilities are still a priority. That shift has fundamentally changed what boards expect from Company Secretaries: not periodic reassurance, but continuous visibility and judgement.

Real-time governance cannot succeed if it is treated as a technology project alone. It marks a shift in how organisations conduct governance, and Company Secretaries sit at the heart of that shift. Company Secretaries are custodians of trust: boards sign, decide and rely on information on the basis that it is accurate, complete and well-founded. In practice, that often boils down to one question: has anyone properly sense-checked this?

That instinct — to probe, verify and ask "show me where this comes from" — becomes even more important as AI and automation are embedded in governance systems.

AI can create a false sense of certainty, delivering confident answers that may rest on flimsy foundations. Company Secretaries must actively push against this, ensuring technology amplifies judgement rather than bypassing it. 

At Vistra's recent event in London, Debbie Aldous, Group Company Secretary at GLAS, shared a practical example. When she uses AI to help interpret something as dense as the French Commercial Code, she does not simply accept the output. She asks for the statute, number, paragraph and section, and checks those references herself before anything is put before a director. No Company Secretary would put material in front of the board that they have not verified. That discipline does not change because the tool is faster.

Company Secretaries are also increasingly the owners or co-owners of the policies that govern how information is used. AI policies, data governance frameworks and technology risk may sit formally with IT or risk teams, but they are now firmly on the board agenda. Questions such as where data is stored, how it is processed, who can access it and how decisions are documented are not purely technical. They are questions of accountability, oversight and, ultimately, governance. These aren't IT questions — they belong on the board agenda, and the Company Secretary is well placed to own them.

And there is a further question worth sitting with: are you actively involved in shaping what your governance dashboards show and how they work — or are you accepting whatever the platform defaults to? The Company Secretaries who will lead in this era are the ones who treat system design as a governance responsibility, not an IT task.

Company Secretaries have a helicopter view of the organisation. Sitting at the junction of business units, functions and regions, and balancing executives and non-executives, they are well placed to interpret real-time dashboards and alerts, distinguish noise from signal and frame issues appropriately for different stakeholders. Real-time governance demands scepticism, context and stakeholder fluency. It cannot be outsourced to a tool. Human judgement is not a nice-to-have in this setting; it is a core governance control that turns technology-driven insights into thoughtful board action.

Real-time governance is already here. Digital entity management platforms, automated workflows, AI-assisted research and live dashboards are already reshaping the role of the Company Secretary. These capabilities will keep evolving — and so will expectations.

The real divide will not be between organisations that use AI and those that do not. It will be between governance teams that actively design how AI and real-time platforms are used, and those that allow others to define them by default.

For Company Secretaries, inaction carries both organisational and professional risks: regulatory exposure for the business and potential professional obsolescence for the individual. In an era defined by technical fluency and proactive stewardship, Company Secretaries must challenge data foundations, unproven AI guardrails and inadequate audit trails. They must insist on systems where accuracy and accountability are just as important as speed.

Boards will continue to depend on trusted human judgement at the heart of governance. In a real-time data environment, that trusted voice remains the Company Secretary — but only for those who claim it now, before it is shaped without them. The question isn't whether AI will change the role. It already is. The question is whether you're in the room when the decisions are made, or whether you find out afterwards.

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About the author 

Meg Ogunsola is Global Head of Entity Management at Vistra, with 20+ years of experience in corporate governance and entity management. A qualified UK Company Secretary, Meg brings a unique perspective to the intersection of governance, technology and regulatory reform, understanding first-hand the challenges that General Counsels and Company Secretaries face in navigating an increasingly complex legislative landscape. 

Meg is recognised as an expert in tech-driven compliance, helping organisations optimise their entity management frameworks and adapt with confidence to regulatory change. Under her leadership, Vistra continues to strengthen its position as a trusted partner for businesses seeking robust, future-ready governance solutions.