My contribution to a board
I would bring a supervisory board the perspective of someone who has had to make workforce commitments in a co-determined company and then keep them. Boards in pharmaceutical manufacturing and healthcare often discuss staffing as a cost line and a risk heading, while the decisions that determine it, such as roster rules, recruitment channels, grading and training, are taken elsewhere. I can help directors ask which of those decisions the company has actually made, what they cost and what the employee representatives at the same table think of them. My experience covers GMP training in sterile manufacturing, nurse and therapist supply, international recruitment ethics, pay structures under the EU pay-transparency directive and occupational health. It does not include clinical decision-making, batch release or treasury, and I would rely on colleagues for those. I have served on one group-internal supervisory board as a shareholder representative but have not yet held an independent seat, so I would start as a committee member rather than a chair.
Judgement in practice
01Accepting lost revenue to end a cost nobody owned
The float-pool decision asked the management board to give up about €1.5 million of revenue from closed beds in return for fewer call-ins and lower agency spending, which we could forecast but not promise. On a supervisory board I would look for similar cases, where a recurring cost is spread across budgets so that no one is accountable for it. Agency staffing, overtime and sickness absence are usually reported separately, which makes each look tolerable. I would ask management to show them together, with the number of days off its staff lost to cancellations. I would also ask what the employee representatives had been told, and when. In our case the Bavarian works council's objection improved the design. A board that hears such objections only after a decision loses that benefit.
02Stopping a recruitment channel the operating plan relied on
Ending the Carovant contract left a medical director with closed beds and a chief executive with an unfunded staffing plan. The ethical case was clear to me; the operating consequence was serious, and I did not pretend otherwise. As a director I would expect management to bring such conflicts to the board early, with facts about fees, sourcing countries and contract terms, rather than settle them quietly in either direction. I would ask how the company audits recruitment chains it does not directly control, including agencies' partners abroad, and whether staff can report a debt or a withheld document without risk to their employment. I would also ask what supply exists inside the company already. Our recognition programme found qualified nurses working in our kitchens and on our cleaning rosters.
My first year on a board
Before my first meeting I would spend a night or weekend shift at one plant or clinic and talk with the works council chair as well as the chief executive. I want to see how a roster, a training sign-off and an incident report actually work in that company before I comment on the papers that summarise them. I would ask the company secretary for three years of employee surveys, absence and turnover by site, and any pay-gap analysis already prepared. In the first budget cycle I would test whether people costs and staffing risks are described in the same terms in the strategy, the budget and the risk report, since gaps between those three documents usually show where nobody owns a problem. After my second meeting I would ask the chair for direct feedback. If my questions were drifting into management's territory, I would want to hear it early.
Conflicts and their management
My employer contracts with social-insurance carriers, acute hospitals that refer patients to us, nursing academies, recruitment agencies, staffing firms and suppliers of therapy equipment. A seat with any company in one of those relationships with Zirbenau would need careful review, and an acute hospital operator that refers patients to our clinics would probably be unsuitable. Before appointment I would declare my employment, my group-internal supervisory board seat and any shareholdings in writing, and I would update the declaration whenever a relationship changed. I would leave the room for any discussion touching Zirbenau's contracts and would carry no information between the two companies, including pay data and the content of works-council negotiations. Time is the other conflict. Twenty-four days a year includes preparation and committee work. If a crisis at Zirbenau made that allowance unrealistic, I would tell the chair promptly rather than attend unprepared.
My independence statement
Zirbenau employs me and I represent its shareholder on our Bavarian subsidiary's supervisory board, so I cannot be independent anywhere within that group. Elsewhere, my independence should be judged by the appointing board against its own criteria and applicable governance code, once it has every relationship I declare in front of it.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to join | Personnel committee (management-board appointments and remuneration) · Nomination committee |
|---|
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 24 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Pharmaceutical and medical-device manufacturing · Hospital and rehabilitation operators · Long-term care and home-care providers
- Company type
- Family-owned, foundation-owned or listed mid-size company in Austria, Germany or Switzerland, ideally with employee representatives on its board
- Company stage
- Workforce expansion, a new plant or site, or preparation for pay-transparency reporting
The seat I am pursuing
I am pursuing a shareholder-side supervisory board seat, or a board seat in Switzerland, at a mid-size pharmaceutical, medical-device or hospital company. I would be most useful where the workforce decides what the company can deliver: a sterile plant adding capacity, a hospital operator facing nurse shortages, or a manufacturer preparing its first pay-transparency report. I would like to join the personnel or nomination committee, which handles management-board appointments and remuneration. I am not seeking a chair role in my first term, and I would expect the board to include members with deeper financial, scientific and clinical expertise than mine. I would rather serve a company whose management already reports its staffing honestly and wants sharper questions than one hoping a new director will repair a people function from the boardroom. That repair belongs to its executives, and I would say so if asked to take it on.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank concerns directors of Indian companies. I work in Austria and Germany, have not registered, and it does not apply to the seats I am pursuing.
- In 2023 I completed a foundation course for new supervisory board members covering board duties, audit oversight and management-board remuneration under German and Austrian company law.
- I have worked through the German Corporate Governance Code and the Austrian Code of Corporate Governance with an experienced supervisory board chair as mentor, concentrating on remuneration and succession.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Zirbenau Kliniken
Group supervisory board and its personnel committee
April 2019–present
Presents workforce strategy, roster agreements, recruitment decisions and the pay-equity programme as a management-board member; no supervisory board seat at group level.
Served as a director
Zirbenau Kliniken Bayern
Supervisory board, shareholder representative
2021–present
Group-internal seat on a one-third co-determined supervisory board; not an independent appointment.
Reported to a committee
Amperwies Private Hospital
Shareholders' advisory committee
2010–2014
Reported nurse vacancies, recruitment from abroad and occupational health measures twice a year at the managing director's request.