E-book Library

 New Viewpoints ebook from Fund Board Views

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year—and welcome to our new Viewpoints collection.

The articles gathered here reflect a year in which fund boards faced fewer sweeping regulatory changes, but no shortage of issues requiring judgment, perspective, and engagement. Rather than fitting neatly into a single theme, this year’s Viewpoints address the mix of challenges directors are confronting in boardrooms today: market structure changes, shareholder activism, emerging technologies, and the enduring realities of governance and fiduciary oversight.

Several contributors focused on how boards are navigating evolving market dynamics, including the growing influence of model portfolios, activism in the closed-end fund space. Others revisited long-standing governance issues—board composition, experience, that remain as relevant and demanding as ever. A multi-part series on conflicts served as a reminder that these questions have not faded with time and continue to warrant careful attention.

We also heard from authors examining newer developments now firmly on board agendas, including artificial intelligence and tokenization. These pieces emphasize not just innovation, but the practical questions boards should be asking as these tools and structures gain traction.

We are grateful to the authors who contributed in 2025 and to our readers who continue to engage with Fund Board Views. We hope this eBook proves to be a useful reference in the year ahead. And if you have an idea for a future Viewpoints article, we encourage you to reach out. We are always interested in new voices and fresh perspectives. As always, the Viewpoints section is designed to offer perspective. We invite subject-matter experts from across the industry to examine issues they believe deserve closer scrutiny and to share views that may prompt discussion or reconsideration.

We wish you a healthy, productive, and successful New Year.

Best,

Dan Lalor, Publisher

Fund Board Views has been around for 10 years now, 10 years in which we’ve examined news and trends in the fund governance space, provided insight and analysis, and offered guidance—all in a variety of formats. One of the best ways we have to disseminate information in a quick and easy-to-read way is through our exclusive and popular 10 Things… lists. To celebrate FBV’s 10th Anniversary, we have consolidated the archives to include just what is most useful to readers on an ongoing basis in our newest e-book, “10 Years 10 Things.”

Three-part series—written by Eversheds Sutherland Senior Counsel Ethan Corey, Partner Michael Koffler, and Associate Carolyn Garcia—that explores what tokenization is how real-world assets are tokenized, advantages and disadvantages of tokenization, and various issues for fund boards to consider as tokenization becomes more prevalent.

Five-part series, written by Buddy Donohue, examining potential conflicts of interest in the financial services industry, focused on mutual funds, investment advisers, broker-dealers, service providers, and other professionals.

This annual publication includes all the Viewpoints that FBV published in 2024. Writers looked ahead after the presidential election and made some predictions of what might be coming from the SEC and what may most affect registered funds and the boards that oversee them and earlier in the year addressed a variety of topics relevant to those serving in, and providing services to, the nation's mutual fund boardrooms. 

Three-part series, written by John Krieg, that provides an overview of distribution strategy, explores the current distribution environment, and delves into actionable steps to improve a fund board's oversight of distribution.

This annual publication includes all the Viewpoints that FBV published in 2023. Authors didn’t shy away from the year's big issues, addressing subjects such as money market funds, sub-adviser relationships, ETF-to-mutual fund conversions, swing pricing, artificial intelligence and cyber risks, investment accounting technology, and more.

This annual publication includes all the Viewpoints that FBV published in 2022. An array of voices spoke up during the year, covering subjects ranging from ESG funds and rating agencies to cryptocurrenies to new derivatives regulation; they looked forward to what boards should expect during the year, and they looked back at how—and why—the role of independent fund directors has changed over the years.

Ten-part series, written by Buddy Donohue and Kim Kaufman, on the most significant regulatory developments for the mutual fund industry in the 2010-to-2020 period.

This annual publication includes all the Viewpoints that FBV published in 2021. Over the course of a year still tinged by the COVID-19 pandemic, FBV published Viewpoints on everything from NAV resiliency and completion funds to the role of special transaction counsel in M&A deals and board considerations when funds consolidate. Also, long-serving industry lawyers shared their thoughts on the ever-changing role of fund boards and provided insight on whether new fee litigation risk was on the horizon.

This annual publication includes all the Viewpoints that FBV published in 2020. In this issue are dozen examples of issues with which independent fund directors dealt during a year when the world descended into lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Viewpoints authors covered everything from fulcrum fees to the 10-year anniversary of the landmark Jones v. Harris Assoc. ruling to the future of in-person board meetings to whether boards need their own staff in order to function better—and more.

A collection of 10 Things lists published between September 2015 and August 2020.

This annual publication includes all the Viewpoints that FBV published in 2019. This collection of contributed op-eds and educational articles are authored by independent fund directors, fund industry lawyers, and others and cover a variety of topics—from valuation guidance and the 15(c) process to artificial intelligence and profitability to exchange-traded funds and sexual harassment. 

This first edition of FBV's Viewpoints annual publication includes all of the Viewpoints published between the fall of 2015 launch of FBV and the end of 2018. There is so much great information included on a variety of topics.