Welcome to your weekly digest of must-read news and knowledge for board directors.

This week, we ask whether boards have got their heads in the cloud, address the damaging cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover, and look at Japan’s new love affair with private equity. 

If you have comments, suggestions or news you think we should include in the newsletter, email me at andrew.hill@ft.com or editor Jonathan Moules at jonathan.moules@ft.com.

Thanks for reading.

Resilience is a boardroom buzzword, applied to everything from energy (where it has become, for now, a Trump-proof alternative to mentioning the E in ESG) to supply chains.

I dare say this week directors are also bandying the term around in relation to cloud services. Monday’s outage at Amazon Web Services was comparatively shortlived but it disrupted — for which read, knocked out — online offerings as diverse as Snapchat, Starbucks and HM Revenue & Customs, the UK tax authority.

AWS is a giant in cloud, alongside Microsoft and Google. That means companies are dependent on a few providers, and may not be aware of their dependency or that of their own suppliers or customers. Who knew that Slack, the workplace messaging system often used to communicate internally about such disasters, itself relied on AWS to stay upright?

As in cyber security (another area where resilience is a popular term), even big companies are only as strong as the weakest links among their suppliers.

Boards should think of cloud as part of a virtual supply chain. In the same way that companies often become aware of their dependency on specific components or suppliers when a tsunami, a pandemic or a war hits, so they should take similar action to mitigate the risks. They should identify key areas of activity that must stay connected then apply a “just-in-case” approach. That would involve using multiple cloud providers and perhaps building an in-house backup too. As Lex pointed out this week, that will not come cheap — just as holding more inventory as a buffer against disaster is more costly. But the consequences of being caught out by an unexpected cyber-tsunami could be even dearer.

‌The AI boom is helping to sustain US growth but demand is coming from the richest consumers who own stocks while poorer Americans are being squeezed.

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My top FT picks

Jaguar Land Rover cyber attack estimated to have cost the UK £1.9bn The month-long shutdown of internal systems and production at the carmaker was likely ‘the most economically damaging cyber event’ for the country, according to a cyber classification group. Is Japan private equity’s next frontier? The country is courting firms to help shake up moribund corporates and spur industry consolidation. Salesforce boss Marc Benioff walks back Trump praise after widespread backlash The software company founder has apologised for backing the US president’s plan to deploy troops to San Francisco, following employee uproar and the resignation of a top venture capitalist from Salesforce’s philanthropic arm. Novo Nordisk chair and six directors exit after dispute with shareholder The Danish drugmaker is grappling with slowing growth and falling share price. Novo Nordisk has also slipped behind its US rival Eli Lilly in the race to dominate the lucrative US obesity market.

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1. Three opportunities to strengthen good governance and corporate resilience | World Economic Forum This article argues for moving from compliance-centric to trust- and outcomes-focused governance, highlighting board-level actions to bolster long-term resilience. It provides a concise framing for aligning governance with strategy and stakeholder trust, useful for board evaluations and refreshing governance key performance indicators.

2. Key findings and good practice | Financial Reporting Council Chairs and audit committee members can use the report to sharpen oversight of their external auditors, probe risk areas and benchmark quality initiatives before the next audit cycle. It pulls together lessons across the past two cycles with practical examples aimed at improving audit methodology and execution at large businesses.

3. The Board’s Role in CEO and Director Compensation | Compensation Advisory Partners CAP examined governance disclosures among the 110 largest companies in the S&P 500 in relation to executive and non-employee director compensation, showing that board practice is far from uniform. This article presents CAP’s findings and explores the trade-offs between the various approaches.