Samantha Kappagoda authored Board Governance of AI and Emerging Technologies for Directors & Boards Magazine. Her article focused on specific examples of oversight for board committees, in addition to identifying some operative issues. To download a reprint of this article, please click this link.
Samantha’s Perspective on Committee-Level AI Oversight
The article’s central contribution to governance literature is its committee-by-committee breakdown of AI oversight responsibilities, a level of specificity that most governance writing on AI does not reach. Samantha addresses audit, risk and technology committees (vendor and subcontractor management, cybersecurity, guardrails for Gen AI employee use), compensation and human capital committees (AI bias in automated employment decision tools, talent strategy for AI development, upskilling), ESG committees (power and water consumption of data centers, Gen AI’s environmental footprint), and governance and nominating committees (board composition, technology fluency versus over-reliance on a single AI-expert director). This taxonomy is grounded in her direct experience as an Audit Committee Member and Nominating Committee Chair; she writes from inside the boardroom. For directors seeking a practical reference on which committee should ask what questions about AI, the article provides an operational approach. This article in Directors & Boards represents Samantha’s most significant contribution to date to governance literature on AI oversight, grounded in her concurrent roles as a sitting independent director, published AI governance author, Chief Data Scientist, and governance faculty member.
Samantha was previously recognized as a Director to Watch in the Directors & Boards 2024 Public Company Issue. She was subsequently a speaker on AI governance at Character of the Corporation in November 2024, participating in the panel Inhuman Capital: AI, the Workplace and the Board. Samantha was previously featured in Directors & Boards in January 2025 following the Character of the Corporation conference.
About Samantha Kappagoda
Samantha Kappagoda is a board director and technology strategist who brings a distinctive blend of capital markets judgment, AI governance and data strategy expertise to complex, regulated environments. Her boardroom perspective leverages her operating experience — in data, analytics and technology — to navigate emerging opportunities, drive value and mitigate risk.
Samantha currently serves as Board Director, Nominating & Governance Committee Chair and Audit Committee Member at the Credit Suisse Funds, now under UBS (NYSE: UBS), and a Member of the Governing Council Business Board at the University of Toronto. She also serves as Chief Data Scientist and Co-Founder of Numerati® Partners LLC, a RiskTech firm, and Visiting Scholar at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.
Recognized as a Director to Watch by Directors & Boards magazine, Samantha is an active contributor at governance forums in USA and Canada, addressing AI and data governance, cybersecurity, financial markets and global macroeconomic trends at Character of the Corporation, Corporate Board Member, Independent Directors Council, NACD Summit, NYU Directors’ Academy, Private Directors Association and WGOB Canada. Samantha has been awarded the Certificate in Private Company Governance from the Private Directors Association, and has also completed the Harvard Business School Program Making Corporate Boards More Effective. For additional information, please see Samantha’s biography, recent news and conferences & events.
