This piece documents a Management Today and Tomorrow's Copmany rountable discussion kindly hosted by Lovells. In it a number of leading business practicitioners and thinkers sat down to answer some of the key questions that came out of the Tomorrow's Owners - Stewardship of tomorrow's company report and it produced some rather interesting ideas for change. Here is a full list of the very high quality participants: Tim Wates, chairman, Wates Family Holdings; Will Hutton, executive vice chair, The Work Foundation; Adrian Beecroft, senior managing partner, Apax Partners; Sir John Egan, chairman, Severn Trent Water;  Colin Melvin, CEO, Hermes Equity Ownership Services; Mark Goyder, founder director, Tomorrow's Company; Rajesh Sennik, leader, private equity and corporate strategy, Accenture; Round Table chairman: Matthew Gwyther, editor, MT; Blake Lee, Harwood environmental consultant; Richard Ufland, corporate partner, Lovells;

It will not have escaped many of your attention that I have been vocal of late about the importance of good governance. Indeed this is my second speech on the topic for our hosts today in the space of a week!So whilst I make a small apology to those who may be experiencing a slight feeling of déjà vu at this point, I make no apology for reiterating the point. Well-run companies are founded on sound governance. If the global banking crisis has taught us anything, it is that poor decisions were made. Decisions went unchallenged.Decisions were allowed to stand.Good decision-making requires three things.It requires excellent judgement to identify opportunities and spot emerging risks.It requires robust governance to ensure that those judgements are in the long-term interest of the company, and to ensure that when judgement fails, there is a back-stop.And it requires owners to care. It requires shareholders and those who act on behalf of shareholders to take an active role in holding...