Corporate Secretary

Corporate secretarial work sits at the operating centre of boards and legal entities. The profession connects governance calendars, papers, meetings, decisions, records, obligations, communications and evidence. When those processes are fragmented, directors receive late information, actions lose accountable owners, records become difficult to reconcile and local legal questions are handled without a clear professional-review path.

This applied online course teaches Corporate Secretary work as an evidence-controlled operating system. Instead of relying on knowledge quizzes, learners perform a professional process in every lesson and create a reusable governance artifact. The final capstone connects those artifacts into a Board and Entity Governance Operations Manual that can be adapted to a fictional case or to a sanitized workplace context after applicable local requirements are confirmed.

Who this course is for

The course is designed for professionals who coordinate or support boards, committees and corporate entities, including:

  • aspiring and current Corporate Secretaries and Company Secretaries;
  • board and committee administrators;
  • governance operations and governance-office professionals;
  • legal operations and in-house legal support teams;
  • entity-management and subsidiary-governance professionals;
  • executive assistants moving into formal board administration;
  • compliance coordinators responsible for evidence and handoffs; and
  • operations leaders improving a corporate secretariat function.

No programming background is required. Learners should be comfortable working with organizational processes, controlled documents, stakeholder communications and professional evidence. The course is general professional education: it does not confer a statutory, licensed or chartered qualification and does not authorize a learner to provide legal advice.

What you will be able to do

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

  1. define a jurisdiction-aware Corporate Secretary mandate with explicit decision and escalation boundaries;
  2. design an annual board and committee calendar linked to governance architecture and accountable owners;
  3. commission, review, secure and circulate board information through controlled workflows;
  4. coordinate meeting readiness, agendas, minutes, decisions, resolutions and action closure;
  5. organize corporate records, obligation calendars, filing instructions and external-provider handoffs;
  6. manage officer, signing, access and corporate-action evidence across an entity portfolio;
  7. establish confidentiality, conflict, technology, identity and responsible-AI controls;
  8. assess board-information and secretariat process quality; and
  9. assemble a Board and Entity Governance Operations Manual with a practical 90-day improvement roadmap.

Applied learning: build a professional portfolio

Every core lesson combines a realistic scene from Asterion Mobility Group, a fictional multinational company, with six distinct theory topics, a blank artifact template, the same template completed for the case, three copyable AI prompts and a self-assessment rubric. Across the first four modules, you will create 20 connected professional artifacts:

  • Scope, Jurisdiction and Authority Map;
  • Board and Committee Governance Calendar;
  • Governance Stakeholder and Escalation Matrix;
  • Board Paper Intake Brief and Quality Rubric;
  • Board Pack Version and Access Control Register;
  • Board Meeting Readiness Runbook;
  • Agenda Architecture and Authority Map;
  • Minutes Drafting and Approval Workflow;
  • Decision, Resolution and Action Register;
  • Shareholder Meeting Operations and Control Annex;
  • Entity Record Inventory and Reconciliation Log;
  • Jurisdiction-Labeled Obligation and Evidence Map;
  • Filing Instruction, Submission and Receipt Register;
  • Officer, Signing Authority and System Access Matrix;
  • Corporate Action Approval and Closing Evidence Checklist;
  • Entity Portfolio Governance Dashboard;
  • Governance Information and Conflict Control Protocol;
  • Governance Technology and AI Control Register;
  • Board Information and Secretariat Control Review; and
  • 90-Day Corporate Secretariat Improvement Roadmap.

Module 5 integrates the twenty artifacts into one coherent governance operating portfolio. The result is designed to show how board and entity work moves from request and evidence through review, decision, action, record and assurance.

Curriculum

Module 1 — Board Governance Foundations and Information Flow

  1. Scope, jurisdiction and authority of the Corporate Secretary — create a Scope, Jurisdiction and Authority Map.
  2. Governance architecture and the annual board calendar — create a Board and Committee Governance Calendar.
  3. Governance stakeholders, communications and escalation — create a Governance Stakeholder and Escalation Matrix.
  4. Board paper commissioning and information quality — create a Board Paper Intake Brief and Quality Rubric.
  5. Secure board packs, portals and circulation evidence — create a Board Pack Version and Access Control Register.

Module 2 — Meetings, Minutes, Decisions and Shareholder Operations

  1. Meeting readiness, declarations and controlled logistics — create a Board Meeting Readiness Runbook.
  2. Agenda architecture for decision-focused boards — create an Agenda Architecture and Authority Map.
  3. Minutes drafting, review, amendment and approval — create a Minutes Drafting and Approval Workflow.
  4. Decisions, resolutions and action closure — create a Decision, Resolution and Action Register.
  5. Shareholder and hybrid meeting operations — create a Shareholder Meeting Operations and Control Annex.

Module 3 — Entity Records, Obligations, Filings and Corporate Actions

  1. Corporate records, registers and authoritative evidence — create an Entity Record Inventory and Reconciliation Log.
  2. Obligation calendars and regulatory change control — create a Jurisdiction-Labeled Obligation and Evidence Map.
  3. Controlled filings and external-provider handoffs — create a Filing Instruction, Submission and Receipt Register.
  4. Director, officer, signing and access lifecycle — create an Officer, Signing Authority and System Access Matrix.
  5. Transactions, restructurings and corporate-action evidence — create a Corporate Action Approval and Closing Evidence Checklist.

Module 4 — Multi-Entity Governance, Information Integrity and Function Leadership

  1. Multi-entity portfolio governance operating model — create an Entity Portfolio Governance Dashboard.
  2. Confidentiality, conflicts and ethical governance operations — create a Governance Information and Conflict Control Protocol.
  3. Governance technology, identity controls and responsible AI — create a Governance Technology and AI Control Register.
  4. Board effectiveness, quality assurance and evidence — create a Board Information and Secretariat Control Review.
  5. Secretariat function leadership and the 90-day roadmap — create a 90-Day Corporate Secretariat Improvement Roadmap.

Module 5 — Applied Capstone

  1. Build the Board and Entity Governance Operations Manual — reconcile the twenty lesson artifacts into an integrated process architecture, governance calendar, control and evidence library, executive narrative and implementation roadmap.

How the course works

The course is online and self-paced. It can be completed within one month, depending on your pace and the depth with which you complete the practical assignments. A useful rhythm is one module per week followed by the capstone, although learners can adapt the schedule to their own availability.

The lessons follow Asterion Mobility Group as its board and entity portfolio becomes more complex. Each case scene adds a different operational challenge: mandate ambiguity, board-paper quality, access control, meeting readiness, minute approval, action closure, record reconciliation, filing handoffs, multi-entity oversight or responsible use of governance technology. The scenes complement one another without repeating the same process.

You may use the supplied case or a sanitized version of your organization. Never upload credentials, personal data, privileged communications, restricted board material, confidential contracts, security details or other information you are not authorized to share. Jurisdiction-specific duties, eligibility, authority, meeting validity and filing requirements must be confirmed from current authoritative sources and reviewed by appropriate professionals.

AI-supported practice and self-assessment

AI is used as a structured thinking and feedback tool, not as legal authority, source evidence or organizational approval. Each lesson provides three complete prompts grounded in the Asterion case. Clearly highlighted context blocks show what a learner can replace with sanitized information from an approved work setting.

Each lesson also provides a rubric and a self-assessment prompt. The learner can submit a sanitized artifact and the rubric to an approved AI system to identify missing fields, contradictions, weak ownership, evidence gaps and unclear escalation paths. The learner remains responsible for source verification, confidentiality, professional review, decisions and approvals.

Certificate

After completing the learning activities, you can access the course certificate and your MTF Student ID from the final course section. The certificate uses the course title Corporate Secretary.

Evidence behind the course

The course design is connected to current labor-market evidence and governance-practice trends:

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