The Hedera Council are there to provide a decentralized governance model. They are an elected group of highly diversified leading global organizations committed to sporting the growth & development of the Hedera network. Who would have a lot to lose if they acted out of line or in Cajun with other organizations for their benefit. They are re elected now and then.

“The goal was to make sure no single party has no more or less influence over the network than any single party,” said Harmon. All the 39 members are “on par with one another,” he explained.

There are to be 39 total members, currently there are 21:

• Avery Dennison
• Boeing
• Dentons
• Deutsche Telekom
• DLA Piper
• EDF (Électricité de France)
• eftpos
• FIS (WorldPay)
• Google
• IBM
• LG
• Magalu
• Nomura Holdings
• Shinhan Bank
• Standard Bank Group
• Swirlds
• Tata Communications
• University College London (UCL)
• Wipro
• Zain Group
• Chain Link

Their responsibilities include:

• Hosting & maintaining initial nodes
• Establishing a governance framework for global markets
• Overseeing the software run by hundreds of thousands of nodes at scale

Basically, govern software changes and overall direction, while bringing stability and continued decentralization to the public network.

Source: YouTube Hedera Governing Council Overview