Digital Curiosity, Confidence and Capability in the Boardroom

By Sarah Luxford, Partner for Digital, Data and Technology, GatenbySanderson

What does it take for boards to lead confidently in a digital world? Sarah Luxford explores how curiosity, confidence and capability combine to create digitally fluent, future-ready leadership.

 

Leading in a World of Digital Acceleration

How confident and how curious are today’s boards when it comes to digital transformation?

This was the question driving our recent GatenbySanderson webinar: Digital Curiosity, Confidence and Capability in the Boardroom. It’s a subject I’m passionate about. Digital is about leadership, governance, and embedding resilience, risk management, and service enhancement into the DNA of every boardroom conversation.

Boards that understand this don’t just adapt, they lead. They make faster, better-informed decisions, take smarter risks, and create cultures that embrace change rather than fear it. They integrate digital confidence into governance, ensuring that transformation isn’t a project but a mindset.

Yet many boards still admit that digital is the hardest topic to engage with – something they know matters deeply but don’t feel equipped to lead. That gap isn’t just a challenge; it’s a strategic risk. In a world where disruption is constant, the organisations that close it will be the ones that thrive.

That’s why we convened an incredible panel of leaders to explore what real digital leadership looks like in practice:

• John Clarke – Portfolio NED and Chair
• Emma Wright – Partner, Crowell & Moring
• Rachel Neaman – Digital Leader, Coach & Mentor
• Nadira Hussain – CEO, Socitm
• Paul Neville – Executive Director, Digital, Data and Technology, The Pensions Regulator

Together, we discussed how digital curiosity, confidence and capability come together to define board effectiveness in a rapidly changing world.

From Awareness to Action: The Case for Digital Curiosity

I opened the session by sharing a truth I see every day: curiosity is the spark that changes everything.

It’s what helps non-digital leaders lean in, ask better questions, and make digital feel accessible rather than intimidating. From curiosity grows confidence, the willingness to learn, to challenge, and to make digital a shared language around the board table. And from confidence comes capability – embedding digital literacy into strategy, recruitment and decision-making.

Curiosity. Confidence. Capability. They’re not sequential stages; they’re interconnected mindsets that shape how modern boards think and act.

1. The Digitally Confident Board: Orchestrators of Intelligent Change

Our first speaker, John Clarke, described the most effective boards as “orchestrators of intelligent change.”

John distinguished between boards that are merely tech aware and those that are truly digitally confident. The difference, he said, lies in how deeply digital fluency is embedded into the board’s collective mindset and rhythm.

“Digitally confident boards see technology as a strategic enabler, not a delivery function,” John explained. “They understand not only AI, cyber and data, but also their systemic and cultural implications.”

He urged Chairs to model what he calls intentional curiosity, asking the second question:

“What does this mean for our value? How does it change our ethics, our assumptions, our decision-making logic?”

Curiosity, he reminded us, isn’t soft. It’s an act of governance.

2. From Compliance to Curiosity: Cyber as a Leadership Issue

Emma Wright, one of the UK’s leading tech and cyber lawyers, warned that cyber resilience is now unambiguously a boardroom responsibility.

“It’s not if but when an incident occurs,” she said. “This isn’t just a technical issue – it’s about operational resilience, supply chain, and reputation.”

Emma urged boards to reframe cyber from a compliance checklist to an enterprise risk discussion. That means embedding it into every conversation about business continuity, finance and culture, not leaving it to the IT team.

Her advice was pragmatic: start with the basics, run realistic simulations, and ensure the board is confident asking “what if?” before a crisis, not after one.

“Every company today is a technology and data business,” she reminded us. “Boards need to start behaving like it.”

3. Humans and AI: Building Confidence and Capability

Rachel Neaman explored the rise of human–AI hybrid teams and what this means for leadership.

“Introducing AI isn’t about adding a new tool,” she said. “It’s about redesigning collaboration, culture and management.”

Rachel’s message was clear: AI should be a co-worker, not a replacement. Boards must set that tone from the top.

She outlined how leaders can build both confidence and capability in their organisations by:

1. Clarifying AI’s purpose – define what it’s for and what it isn’t.
2. Creating collaborative workflows – humans and AI working together, not in hand-offs.
3. Investing in AI literacy – questioning, verifying and understanding outputs.
4. Protecting human value – ensuring efficiency doesn’t come at the expense of creativity or purpose.

“Always use humans to manage humans,” she cautioned. “Never outsource judgment to an algorithm.”

Her point on curiosity struck home: humans stay curious only when they know their contribution matters.

4. Making Digital Everyone’s Business

Nadira Hussain brought an inspiring, practical perspective: digital is everyone’s business.

“Why are we still treating digital as a bolt-on?” she asked. “It should be as embedded as finance or HR.”

Citing research that by 2030, 90% of employees will need new skills to do their jobs, Nadira argued that leaders must create test-and-learn cultures where curiosity and experimentation are encouraged, not feared.

Socitm’s partnerships with Microsoft and Change AI are helping bridge the gap between leadership and grassroots skills, developing digital capability across all tiers of the public sector.

“Leaders need to stop feeling vulnerable about digital,” Nadira said. “Be the champion. Be the advocate. If not now, when?”

5. Why Every Board Needs Digital Experience

Paul Neville, Executive Director, Digital, Data and Technology at The Pensions Regulator, closed with a call to action:

“You wouldn’t have a board without an accountant — so why have one without digital capability?”

At TPR, Paul’s digital and data leadership has transformed not just internal operations, but how the regulator collaborates with the entire pensions industry.

He argued that having a board member with real digital delivery experience brings credibility, challenge and creativity to decision-making. And for digital leaders aspiring to make that step into NED roles, his advice was simple:

“Translate technology into business language. Show how it delivers value. And if your organisation doesn’t get it, find one that does.”

Curiosity Comes First

We ran a live poll during the webinar asking: Which quality should boards strengthen first – curiosity, confidence or capability?

The clear winner was curiosity, with 50% of the vote.

That feels right. As John Clarke put it:

“Your job as a NED isn’t to be the smartest person in the room – it’s to help others be smart, by asking better questions.”

Curiosity drives confidence, which in turn builds capability. It’s the foundation for modern, resilient and adaptive governance.

Five Questions Every Board Should Ask Tomorrow

We ended the session with a quick-fire round, asking our panel for one question every board should ask itself at its next meeting. Their answers are worth repeating:

1. John Clarke: “Are we using AI and data to run the organisation we have or to shape the one we should have?”
2. Emma Wright: “What’s keeping you awake at night?”
3. Nadira Hussain: “Are we diverse and representative enough of the people and communities we serve?”
4. Rachel Neaman: “What problem do we really think AI will solve?”
5. Paul Neville: “What assumptions are we making about the future and are they still true?”

Five questions that perfectly capture curiosity, confidence and capability in action.

Final Reflections

If there’s one thing I took away from this session, it’s that digital curiosity must start at the top.

Curiosity creates confidence. Confidence builds capability. And capability, when it’s shared and embedded, allows organisations to lead with purpose in an era of extraordinary change.

As I said in closing, curiosity is contagious — but only if boards are brave enough to model it.

Because the future belongs to the curious.

Here’s the full recording of the webinar

About GatenbySanderson

At GatenbySanderson, we help organisations identify and develop digital leaders who can drive confident, inclusive transformation from Non-Executive Directors and Trustees, to C-level, Director and ‘Heads of’ across all digital professions be it data to AI, infrastructure to architecture, service design to product, operations to delivery.

If you’d like to explore how to strengthen digital curiosity, confidence and capability across your board or executive team, please do get in touch – I’d love to continue the conversation. Email me at DDaT@gatenbysanderson.com