Samantha Kappagoda was a speaker on AI in the Boardroom: Oversight, Accountability and Strategic Value at the Corporate Board Member Boardroom Summit and Board Committee Peer Exchange, held in Washington DC on September 18 and 19, 2025.
Samantha participated in the plenary panel titled AI in the Boardroom: Defining Oversight, Accountability and Strategic Value, with fellow panelists Keith Enright, Senior Partner at Gibson Dunn and Board Member, ZoomInfo, and Dottie Schindlinger, Executive Director of Diligent Institute. The three panelists had previously collaborated on a A Pulse Check on AI in the Boardroom, which reported the results of the August 2025 Director Confidence Index polling on AI Governance by Diligent Institute and Corporate Board Member. The panel sought to cover two primary topics: (i) integrating AI oversight across committees and (ii) considering broader risk and regulatory issues, and ethics.
Samantha Kappagoda’s Contribution at the Corporate Board Member Boardroom Summit
Samantha’s plenary panel contribution at the Corporate Board Member Boardroom Summit placed her alongside two prominent voices in AI governance for corporate directors; a Gibson Dunn Senior Partner who also serves on a public company board, and the Executive Director of Diligent Institute. Samantha’s perspective on AI oversight, accountability, and strategic value drew on her active board service as Independent Director, Nominating Committee Chair, and Audit Committee Member, her published thought leadership in Directors & Boards and the NACD Director Essentials series, and her operating depth as Chief Data Scientist, positioning AI governance not as a compliance obligation but as a source of long-term strategic value that boards are distinctively positioned to reinforce.
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, Samantha is the author of Board Governance of AI & Emerging Technologies, in Directors & Boards magazine, and a contributor to NACD Director Essentials: Implementing AI Governance. She is an active contributor at governance forums in USA, Canada and UK, addressing AI and data governance, cybersecurity, financial markets and global macroeconomic trends. She has served as faculty at NYU Directors’ Academy, NACD Master Class on Technology and Innovation Oversight and Diligent Institute, and been an invited panelist at conferences including Character of the Corporation, Corporate Board Member, Independent Directors Council, Institute of Directors UK, NACD Summit, Private Directors Association, Society for Corporate Governance and WGOB Canada. Samantha has been awarded the DCRO Institute Certificate in Risk Governance®, 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 and recent news.
