What’s the leading board management software for regulated industries?

TL;DR

• Regulated industries need board software that helps them navigate increasing governance challenges.
• Key features include granular permissions, audit trails, encrypted document storage, and secure communication channels.
• The best platforms combine compliance with usability, helping directors focus on oversight rather than admin.
• Board Intelligence offers tools purpose-built for regulated sectors, pairing a secure board portal with AI-driven board reporting software.

What are the governance challenges in regulated sectors?

Disciplined board reporting (clear ownership, version control/audit trails, secure digital packs, incident-ready workflows) is a governance necessity in regulated industries. Across the globe, sectors such as finance, healthcare, and energy have come under increased scrutiny as the consequences of failure are high. Think public safety, systemic economic risk, national security, or critical infrastructure.

Here are the top challenges regulated industries face today and what that means for the board.

1. Cybersecurity is now a board-level disclosure duty. In the U.S., the SEC’s cybersecurity rules require public companies to disclose material cyber incidents within four business days. They must also describe cyber risk management and governance in annual reports.

As SEC Chair Gary Gensler put it: “Whether a company loses a factory in a fire—or millions of files in a cybersecurity incident—it may be material to investors.”

1. Data breach costs are highest in regulated sectors, raising the bar for oversight. IBM’s 2025 Cost of Data Breach report shows the healthcare industry has the highest average breach cost, at $10.93M, with financial services at $6.08M. This is well above the global average, making cyber risk a prime governance priority for these boards.
2. Operational resilience has hard deadlines and board accountability. UK regulators gave firms a deadline of March 31, 2025, to operate important business services within defined “impact tolerances.” This is a board governance issue spanning cyber, third-party risk, and incident response.
3. Enforcement and penalties are escalating. FINRA imposed $59.8M in fines in 2024, and global regulatory fines across financial services reached an estimated $19.3B in 2024. This shows that regulators are active and boards must evidence strong controls, audit trails, and reporting.
4. Sector-specific compliance expectations are rising. In U.S. healthcare, HHS OIG is rolling out updated, sector-tailored compliance program guidance. In energy/utilities, state regulators are aligning on cybersecurity baselines. These expectations all demand board visibility into controls, training, and reporting.
5. Third-party and supply-chain liability. Regulators increasingly hold boards accountable for vendor misconduct (e.g., the FDA’s recent warning letters citing “inadequate supplier oversight”). This is important in healthcare, automotive, and food, where recalls can be fatal.
6. Demand for ethical use of AI in life sciences. FDA draft guidance (2025) demands pre-market risk assessments and post-market monitoring for AI-enabled medical devices. This places new duties on R&D and audit committees.
7. The importance of AI governance and algorithmic accountability. Boards must now oversee large-language model (LLM) deployments that affect credit, underwriting, diagnostics, or safety-critical systems. Key concerns for boards are bias, explainability, data privacy, and auditable decision logs.

It’s clear. Paper-based or generic collaboration tools lack the security safeguards, structured reporting, and traceability that regulators expect. Weaknesses in information management can create reputational risks and, as shown above, lead to fines.

The good news is that the right board management software addresses these risks by combining compliance-grade security with tools that improve boardroom efficiency and strategic focus. Let’s dig in.

Which compliance-driven features are essential to board management software?

Leading board management platforms are designed to protect sensitive information while simplifying oversight. For regulated industries, compliance-driven features in board management software are essential to reducing risk, satisfying regulators, and protecting directors. Here are the key ones:

• Secure document storage and sharing: End-to-end encryption, role-based access, and watermarking to protect sensitive board materials.
• Audit trails: Automatic logs of who accessed, edited, or shared documents, critical for evidencing compliance to regulators.
• Version control: Ensures directors are always working from the latest approved document while retaining full historical records.
• eSignatures and approvals: Legally binding digital signatures to meet regulatory and governance requirements.
• Data residency and compliance certifications: Hosting options aligned with GDPR, HIPAA, or SOC 2, depending on the industry.
• Granular permissions: Role- and committee-based access controls to limit exposure of sensitive information.
• Retention and archiving policies: Automated compliance with record-keeping rules, including secure archiving.
• Integrated compliance checklists and workflows: To streamline regulated processes (e.g., risk reporting, incident disclosures).
• Secure communication channels: Built-in, compliant alternatives to personal email or messaging apps.

These capabilities not only support governance and compliance but also equip the board, governance team, and management with the right tools to unlock organisation-wide performance.

What are the best options for highly regulated organizations?

Some providers focus only on logistics, but regulated industries require more. The strongest solutions combine robust compliance with usability and governance expertise. Board Intelligence offers two standout options for boards operating under strict regulation.

Board Intelligence

We offer two flexible options that provide regulated industries with all the tools they need to remain compliant and secure their data. These are our board portal and AI-powered reporting tool, Lucia.

Board Intelligence board portal

The Board Intelligence Portal is a secure platform designed to help boards of regulated organizations navigate the increasing challenges in their industry.

With cybercrime being one of the biggest threats, it’s good to know Board Intelligence has your back. Our platform centralizes all board materials, with biometric login, ISO 27001–certified UK data centers, and Cyber Essentials Plus certification. Granular permissions let administrators control document visibility down to the page level, while audit logs capture every action for full traceability.

Our board portal strengthens security in two major ways:

• It unifies the reporting process, reducing risk and simplifying security.
• It automates the reporting process, limiting human error.

For directors, the growing burden of compliance and regulation is cutting into the time needed for strategy and broader stakeholder conversations. Our board portal offers tools such as the smart Agenda Planner, drag-and-drop collation, and instant republishing of updated papers that save governance teams hours of preparation.

Split-screen view supports virtual meetings, while annotations and e-signatures make collaboration simple and secure.

This combination of compliance strength and ease of use makes the Board Intelligence Portal a trusted choice across financial services, healthcare, and government bodies.

Lucia: AI-powered reporting

While the portal secures and distributes board materials, Lucia improves their quality. This AI-powered reporting tool guides report authors to cut jargon, sharpen analysis, and focus on what matters to regulators and directors alike. It acts as a “critical friend,” helping authors produce reports that are structured, consistent, and decision-ready.

For regulated industries, Lucia reduces the risk of lengthy, unfocused papers that obscure key information. Reports are clear, concise, and aligned with the board’s accountability needs. Combined with the portal, and based on the QDI Principle, it gives directors both secure access and high-quality content, strengthening oversight and compliance.

Other board portals used in regulated industries

When it comes to regulated industries, security, auditability, and compliance are key. Let’s explore four of the most trusted platforms in these industries and see how Board Intelligence closes their gaps:

Diligent

Diligent is a clear heavyweight for global enterprises, delivering a full stack of governance tools. These include encrypted document management and voting to compliance, risk, and ESG modules, which makes the platform a strong fit for sectors bound by regulations like SOX, GDPR, and HIPAA.

While Diligent’s scope is deep, its wide-ranging features can feel more like cafeteria options than a focused meal, especially for boards seeking direct, decision-focused clarity.

In contrast, Board Intelligence hones in on delivering meaningful, question-driven insights instead of clutter, helping regulated boards stay not just compliant but strategically aligned and agile.

Azeus Convene

Widely adopted in finance and healthcare, Azeus Convene offers a clean interface, dependable performance, annotation tools, and SOC-2 level encryption. These features make it a good choice for high-stakes governance. While the platform is generally reliable, features like annotations and offline support are sometimes delivered in siloes.

Board Intelligence brings all these elements together seamlessly, ensuring that whether you’re drafting in-flight or strategizing in the boardroom, the experience is unified, swift, and resilient.

OnBoard

OnBoard has carved out a niche for being intuitive and accessible, with features like biometric login, granular permissions, 2FA, secure remote wipe, and full compliance with ISO 27001 and HIPAA.

While OnBoard brings solidity and security, Board Intelligence builds on that with a heightened intelligence layer that embeds clarity through question-led executive summaries and strategic framing. This results in board time becoming about insight, not just information flow.

Nasdaq Boardvantage

The Nasdaq Boardvantage platform is designed to simplify virtual or hybrid board governance. It offers workflow automation, remote meeting facilitation, and quick approvals. Nasdaq does virtual well, but high-level compliance requires more than remote meeting tools.

Board Intelligence couples virtual readiness with governance maturity, giving regulated boards the clarity and stewardship tools they need to meet scrutiny without sacrificing momentum.