Ah, yes, the siren song of 2009 and the theme of the Obama administration: Change.

Change, it seems, is both wanted and inevitable. But change in what direction? Later in this column are our predictions for how the corporate governance landscape will evolve in the next four years of the Obama Administration. But, first, let’s look in the rear-view mirror to the “whither corporate governance” predictions we made in this column in 2005, at the launch of the second Bush administration. It’s only fair that you know our record as prognosticators.

Our top prediction in 2005 was that more conflicts of interest would explode into front-page news. That was not a hard prediction to make, but we did correctly forecast the likely industry to draw fire. We wrote: “The only question is which emperor without clothes will next be exposed: credit rating agencies paid by companies they rate?” It’s rude to boast, particularly when so much pain has arrived for so many, so we’ll let those four-year-old words speak for themselves.

Number two in the 2005 crystal ball was that climate change would start driving some investor decisions. They have, although interestingly, corporations in the United States and Canada seem to be ahead of investors on this issue. (The reverse is generally true in Europe.) Our third prediction was for a European version of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. That never happened, but some regulations were toughened up.

Fourth, we believed more cops would hit the beat at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. We were not just wrong—we were 180 degrees-in-the-opposite-direction wrong. We never imagined that then-SEC Chairman Christopher Cox would neuter the SEC’s enforcement mandate, but neuter it he did.

Fifth, we thought that new rules mandating disclosure of proxy voting would result in more votes against management by historically docile mutual funds. That has happened. Investors may not think mutual funds have gone far enough, but the funds have radically changed their policies, as a recent Investment Company Institute study showed.

Our sixth forecast was that foreign investors would begin making their influence felt in the United States. The long-running melodrama between London’s TCI fund and CSX Corp. is only one example of this. We also suggested that non-governmental organizations would begin pairing with investors to promote certain issues on an industry-by-industry basis. Let’s call that a partially correct prediction. While we have seen some developments along those lines, such as Forest Ethics’ involvement with paper companies and other users of timber products, fewer NGOs have adopted this tactic than we would have expected.

Eighth, we discussed expensing of stock options, and suggested that companies get ahead of that train—and sure enough, the Financial Accounting Standards Board sent that train on its way years ago. We also forecast the increasing globalization of accounting standards. So far, that’s been correct. Our Canadian readers are scheduled to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards outright, and harmonization is en route in the United States, although our 2009 prediction modifies our earlier view. Finally, we argued that majority voting to elect board directors was going to happen. We’ll claim clairvoyance on that one.

So, our overall total was seven right, two wrong, and one partially right. Not bad, especially considering the returns Wall Street is seeing these days from the bets it made in the last four years.

Now for our 2009 predictions:

A revitalized SEC. The Securities and Exchange Commission will return to enforcement prominence and to its historic mission as “the investor’s advocate.” We expect the new Commission to take aggressive action to reverse the tailspin in morale, resources, and stature of the last few years. It will do that with high-profile, investor-friendly hires, reversing the internal rule that enforcement personnel must pre-clear penalty negotiations with the Commission, and by lobbying extensively for more resources—possibly even for an independent funding source.

Systemic risk regulation and product regulation. Somehow, somewhere, a governmental body will be assigned the specific task of monitoring for “systemic risk,” most likely as an “apex” regulator. The current regulatory system has different regulators for the different links in the financial ecosystem chain. That has the advantage of domain expertise; bank examiners, for instance, know about banks. The disadvantage is that no one is responsible for how the parts interact. Serious regulatory reformers, such as Joel Seligman, a noted securities expert and president of the University of Rochester, are calling for an apex regulator that would somehow sit atop the domain regulators and monitor for systemic risk. We will also see more functional regulation by product. When a financial institution creates a credit instrument, it may be regulated by the SEC, the Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Reserve, a state banking regulator, state insurance regulator, or nobody at all. It all depends on the status of the issuer (that is, whether it’s a bank, insurance company, hedge fund, et cetera), despite the fact that the instruments may look, walk, and talk alike. Expect legislation that moves us toward “product” regulation, rather than regulation based on legal structure.

Increased transparency. Regulators can’t regulate what they don’t know. And systemic risk monitors can’t monitor what they can’t see. Expect that to mean pressure for increased transparency from such traditionally opaque financial institutions as hedge funds, “dark” liquidity pools, and over-the-counter derivative transactions.

Say on pay. With the recent announcement that Intel Corp. has accepted a shareowner proposal for an advisory vote on executive compensation, combined with the drumbeat of negative executive compensation articles (most recently about John Thain’s office remodeling and staggeringly ill-timed Wall Street bonuses) and President Obama’s endorsement of “say on pay” legislation, it’s just a matter of time before advisory votes on compensation are mandated for all U.S.-listed companies. Don’t be surprised if Canada follows suit.

Proxy access. Giving shareowners the ability to nominate a corporate director on the company’s own proxy statement has been incredibly contentious for years. There are many questions: Would access mean “special interest directors” or “directors accountable to shareowners?” Would a federal rule pre-empt the state’s prerogatives? Would investors actually use the access? Forget all that. There will be some form of proxy access required for all U.S. public companies.

Speed bumps en route to a global accounting regime. The rationale for a global accounting system remains in place: Markets are global, investors increasingly place money across borders, and multinational corporations want to be able to prepare one set of books. A number of experts and legislators, however, believe U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles provide more certainty and investor protection than does IFRS. Those skeptics believe harmonization is a ruse to weaken accounting standards. Until now, they have been ignored and shouted down. That will no longer be the case. In the next four years we’ll continue toward global harmonization, but there will be more give-and-take between GAAP and IFRS. And unlike the last four years, that dialogue will reshape global standards as much as it does American ones.

We expect the new Commission to take aggressive action to reverse the tailspin in morale, resources, and stature of the last few years.

Independent chairmen. As the financial crisis increasingly spotlights flaws in board oversight, the United States will shift steadily—and perhaps more swiftly than anyone now anticipates—toward a model of independent non-executive chairmanship of corporate boards. Shareowners and lawmakers will want to make sure that CEOs truly have a boss in the boardroom.

Strategy re-enters the boardroom, through the risk door. After a decade in which directors have at times felt like compliance cops, they’re probably not looking forward to what some have called their new role: risk regulation. But calls for “risk committees,” for dedicated risk expertise in the boardroom, for linking executive compensation to risk taking, and for comprehensive enterprise risk management programs, will be welcomed in hindsight. Why? Because determining the appropriate risk profile for a company is fundamentally a strategic planning exercise. As a result, there will be a renewed focus on directors with appropriate domain expertise.

Increasing diversity of investor (and corporate) time frames. Investors have reacted to the financial crisis with self-criticism, often centering on investors’ own short-termism. In response, numerous initiatives have cropped up to get investors thinking about long-term investing, rather than short-term trading. Most recently we’ve seen the announcement by a group of British fund managers that they would like institutional investors to insert into all investment policies a “do no harm” to the economy clause. That said, short-term greed may be down, but it’s not out. The result is likely to be a shareowner roster full of institutions with different time frames, and therefore different needs and desires. Still, the emergence of at least some long-term investors offers a ray of hope to corporations that want to invest for a sustainable future, rather than obey the tyranny of quarterly earnings expectations. We expect this to play out in numerous ways, including more companies refusing to provide quarterly guidance, and investor-relations professionals targeting longer-term investors.

Energized corporate pension funds. The last time the U.S. government issued any real guidance on fund engagement with portfolio companies was way back in 1988, when the “Avon letter” required corporate pension funds to vote their shares. Expect the financial crisis to prompt fresh sets of obligations for funds, spurring them to take governance monitoring and activism far more seriously.

We will keep track of how we do on these forecasts … for our column of February 2013.