The Governance Load is Growing

In today’s regulatory and operational environment, governance is no longer just legal’s responsibility. The expanding complexity of global business across jurisdictions, ownership structures and internal reporting lines means that legal, finance, tax and treasury are increasingly interdependent. Yet in many companies, governance processes remain siloed and reliant on tools and workflows that were not built for cross-functional visibility or global scale.

According to Athennian’s 2025 State of Entity Management Report, 67% of companies operate across three or more regions — but 68% have just one to three people managing all legal entities.

That’s not just a workload issue. It’s a structural problem that creates structural risk. When governance remains reactive, every department pays the price in delays, penalties and missed opportunities. To move forward, companies need more than headcount. They need a shift in culture, from seeing legal as the gatekeeper to considering governance a collaborative task.

Legal As First and Last Stop

Today’s legal teams are constantly fielding questions from tax, finance and other business units:

• Who’s authorized to sign this tender?
• Where’s the latest ownership breakdown?
• Can you send the most recent org chart?

Without centralized systems, legal becomes the default point of contact for every request. As Diana Hendrix, Director of Legal Ops at a global business, says: “I don’t just wear the entity management hat. I’m also managing risk, insurance and governance. It helps to have a solution where governance information is easily accessible and scalable.” 

She’s not alone. Fully 58% of legal teams say maintaining consistency across jurisdictions is one of their top challenges. When governance data is disconnected, that affects every team that depends on it.

Why Governance Isn’t Just Legal’s Job Anymore

As businesses expand, governance touches almost every corner of the organization. Legal may own the framework, but other teams rely on accurate governance data to meet their mandates. 

• Finance needs up-to-date entity structures for audits and reporting, clear signer authority for filings and reliable governance data for investor and regulatory disclosures.
• Tax depends on clean ownership records, historical entity changes and current structures to stay compliant and accurately position the business.
• Treasury requires real-time signer and banking details to manage cash flow, open accounts and coordinate transactions across global entities.

When governance information lives in multiple systems (or is missing altogether) these teams have no choice but to rely on legal for answers. That dynamic slows everyone down. Instead of acting as a strategic partner, legal becomes a service desk for the rest of the business.

The solution isn’t more oversight — it’s smarter access. Collaborative governance gives stakeholders timely access to data without compromising security. 

The Real Cost of Governance Failures

The same report reveals that 93% of companies agree that poor entity management poses a serious legal risk. The fallout isn’t theoretical. Citigroup and Wells Fargo faced millions in penalties due to governance and data control failures — fallout from fragmented systems and poor oversight. 

These are high-profile examples, but the underlying issue is common: governance failures rooted in weak systems, poor visibility and fragmented data.

Why Local Tools Can’t Handle Global Governance

Legacy solutions might have done the job when operations were simpler, but global governance demands more. What worked five years ago simply doesn’t hold up as complexity increases.

“A lot of companies say they use entity management software, but what they’re really using is a board tool or a cap table product with light governance features,” says Monica Goyal, VP of Legal Innovation at Briefly LLC. 

Without purpose-built systems, or worse, when different teams are using separate tools, cross-border consistency inevitably falters. The gaps show up in all kinds of ways: directors listed in one platform but missing from another, outdated org charts mistakenly sent to auditors, deadlines slipping through the cracks due to manual calendars and scattered reminders, and so on.

Only 21% of legal teams are highly satisfied with their current entity management solution. Most are working around tools that weren’t built for the job they’re now expected to do.

What Modern Governance Looks Like

Forward-thinking legal teams aren’t trying to control every interaction — they’re building governance frameworks that scale. Just look at the examples set by three Athennian customers:

Wellbore Integrity: Centralized Governance and Cut Penalties

Legal teams often see the risk. The challenge is convincing leadership to invest in fixing it. Diana tackled this head-on by quantifying the cost of inaction.

“We had faced so many financial penalties before automation. So we pulled all that data together and made the case: here’s how much we’re spending on late fees, penalties and fines. It helped us justify the need for an entity management platform and since then, we’ve significantly reduced those costs.”

Her automation fix:

• Centralized entity data into one system
• Enabled view-only access for tax and finance
• Reduced bottlenecks with self-serve data and documents
• Cut out late filing penalties with e-filing 

Briefly: Uses Automation to Stay Ahead of Filings

As external counsel managing multiple entities for clients, Monica Goyal, VP of Legal Innovation at Briefly, needed workflow consistency. Her automated solution?

• Run monthly compliance reports across client entities
• Use system-generated deadlines to avoid missed filings
• Apply consistent workflows across regions and entity types

“Sometimes tracking deadlines is a job in itself. Automated tracking and reporting helps us spot issues before they snowball.”

HSP Group: Uses AI to Boost Oversight Accuracy

Working with global clients, the team helps navigate regulatory curveballs in complex jurisdictions. 

• Using AI to transcribe board meetings and generate minutes
• Saves hours of manual documentation time
• Frees the team to focus on oversight, not note-taking

“It still needs human review, but automation lets governance professionals spend less time typing and more time managing,” says Stephanie Williams-Quinn, Senior Director of Compliance at HSP Group.  

Governance is a Team Sport. Build a Culture That Supports it

Compliance doesn’t start and end with legal. Teams across the business play a role, and systems must support that collaboration. Here’s how to start building a governance culture that scales:

• Track where manual work is costing everyone: Don’t just calculate legal’s time. Ask tax, finance and other teams how often they’re delayed waiting on governance data. Quantify those delays and missed deadlines penalties, to build a stronger, cross-functional case for change.
  
• Automate where risk and repetition are highest: Look at recurring tasks like KYC requests, officer updates, org chart changes, audit reports — these are high-friction, high-impact areas. Automating these opens up all teams to focus on analysis, not admin.
  
• Use tech to create transparency, not just control: Give cross-functional teams access to what they need. Role-based permissions allow secure sharing while keeping legal in the loop.
  
• Replace calendar chaos with automated reporting and e-filing: Move beyond siloed reminders. Use systems that surface upcoming deadlines and handle jurisdictional filings automatically.
  
• Standardize governance data for scalable growth: Structured, centralized data lets you onboard new entities, respond to audits and adapt to new regulations without rebuilding your process from scratch. 

Building a culture of governance isn’t about adding headcount or enforcing stricter rules. It’s about equipping your team with tools and systems that support smart, scalable compliance. Because when governance is centralized, automated and truly collaborative, everyone works better.