Raymond Cheung
Chartered Actuary · CRO · Board Adviser · Singapore
ACRA and the Singapore Institute of Directors signed an MoU on 28 August 2026 to launch Company Director Fundamentals — six complimentary modules and four paid ones on directors' legal and governance duties, with registration opening in October. It raises the floor. It does not answer the question that actually catches boards out: whether the board has the wiring to discharge the duties it has been taught.
I have sat through board induction sessions that ran three hours and covered the constitution, the delegations of authority, the D&O policy and the SGX listing rules. By the end the new director knew the paperwork. What none of it touched was the thing that actually catches boards out: how a material risk gets from the underwriting floor or the model validation team to the person sitting at the board table, and how many days and desks it crosses on the way.
On 28 August 2026, ACRA and the Singapore Institute of Directors signed a memorandum of understanding to build the Company Director Fundamentals programme. CDF 101 is six complimentary modules on directors' legal, fiduciary and governance duties. CDF 201 adds four paid modules on board stewardship, organisational resilience and commercial performance. Complete all ten and you get a joint ACRA–SID certificate. Registration opens in October, with course design input from RSM Singapore and Rajah & Tann.
I think this is overdue and worth having. For years the serious director education in Singapore has been SID's own courses, priced and pitched at people already sitting on listed boards. A free first tier changes who can walk in — the director of a mid-sized private company, the first-time appointee, the family-business successor who has never had the duties laid out plainly. Standardising that baseline is a real public good.
“A certificate tells you a director has been taught the duties. It does not tell you the board has the wiring to discharge them.”
The limit is worth naming too. In my experience the directors who get Singapore boards into trouble are rarely the ones who could not recite their fiduciary duty. They are the ones who knew it precisely and still could not tell whether the risk appetite statement in the pack was influencing a single decision, or whether the stress scenarios in front of them were severe enough to be worth running. That is not an individual knowledge gap. It is a gap in how the board is fed and how it works.
- An induction that maps the real escalation path — who sees a material risk first, and how many hand-offs it passes through before it reaches a director.
- A standing agenda item where management brings the risk it is least comfortable discussing, not the one that presents best.
- A board evaluation that tests whether directors can challenge a model or a capital assumption — not just whether meetings run to time.
So take the CDF modules — CDF 101 in particular, there is no reason not to. Then ask the question the certificate cannot answer for you: when this board is handed something uncomfortable, does the information reach us intact, and are we set up to do anything with it?
Common Questions
What is the Company Director Fundamentals (CDF) programme?
CDF is a director training programme jointly developed by ACRA and the Singapore Institute of Directors under a memorandum of understanding signed on 28 August 2026. CDF 101 comprises six complimentary modules on directors' legal, fiduciary and governance duties; CDF 201 comprises four paid modules on board stewardship, organisational resilience and commercial performance. Completing all ten earns a joint ACRA–SID certificate, with registration opening in October 2026.
Is director training mandatory in Singapore?
There is no blanket statutory requirement that every company director complete formal training. SGX listing rules require first-time directors of listed issuers to undergo prescribed training in areas such as their roles and responsibilities and sustainability. The ACRA–SID CDF programme is voluntary and aimed at widening access to a governance baseline across both listed and non-listed companies.
Does completing a director course make a board effective?
No. Training raises an individual director's baseline knowledge of their duties. Board effectiveness depends on whether information reaches directors intact, whether the risk and control functions can escalate without being filtered, and whether the board's processes let it act on what it learns. A certificate addresses the first of those and none of the rest.
About the author
Raymond Cheung is a Chartered Actuary, C-suite executive and board adviser with more than 20 years of experience across Asia in risk management, insurance, ESG and corporate governance. He is the CEO of CER Consultancy and an accredited trainer at SMU Academy and the Singapore College of Insurance.