My contribution to a board
The experience I could bring to another board concerns continuity when responsibility changes hands. A service business can be vulnerable even when its reported delivery measures are satisfactory: the explanation for an exception may sit with one employee, the promised support may depend on voluntary availability, or a client may not know who will answer after a project closes. I can help a board ask whether those conditions have been understood before it approves expansion or succession plans.
My current directorship is executive. I prepare proposals, lead the team expected to deliver them and participate in the board’s decisions. That experience has taught me the importance of presenting alternatives fairly, but it is not evidence that I have already mastered an independent role. As an external director I would need to work through the chair and agreed reporting arrangements, rather than ask staff for the operating access I have at Velmoraine. I would contribute questions about service promises and organisational memory without turning the board into a second delivery team.
I would be most useful on a technology and service-risk committee or in people and succession discussions. I am not presenting myself as an audit specialist or seeking a committee chair position on the strength of an executive title. The value I offer is the ability to connect a commercial promise with the practical capability needed to keep it, and to recognise when a proposed assurance does not address that connection.
My first year on a board
Before joining an external board, I would read the organisation’s service agreements at a level appropriate to the role and ask how its management team describes the difference between contractual completion and operational readiness. The first months would be an induction, including discussions arranged through the chair with people responsible for delivery and client relationships. I would seek to understand their language before proposing a reporting change borrowed from my own company.
By the middle of the year, I would hope to contribute to a focused review already important to the board, perhaps an executive succession or a transfer of service responsibility. I would ask for the assumptions, the evidence used to test them and the escalation route when the receiving team is not ready. I would avoid adding a new reporting burden merely because a topic resembles my experience. At the annual review, I would invite feedback on whether my questions helped directors make a choice or drew them unnecessarily into operational detail.
Conflicts and their management
An external service organisation might supply our clients, compete for the same contract or use software from a vendor with which we have negotiated terms. Those relationships need examination before an appointment and periodic review afterwards. I would disclose relevant interests through the agreed process and avoid using confidential pricing, client records or technical details from my executive role in another board’s discussion. The fact that an example would be persuasive would not make it appropriate to share.
Twenty days a year is an initial planning allowance, subject to employer consent and the actual calendar. It must include preparation, visits and unscheduled work, not just formal meetings. A substantial incident or succession difficulty could require more time. I would discuss that possibility before accepting, including what happens when both organisations need attention during the same period. I would prefer one properly supported appointment to several nominal commitments.
My independence statement
I am an executive director of my employer and do not describe that role as independent. Eligibility and independence for any external appointment would need assessment by that board against its circumstances and applicable requirements.
Judgement in practice
01A missed succession rehearsal, 2024
Our board received a report saying that every senior operating role had a documented deputy. During preparation for a planned absence, one deputy could find the routine procedures but not the reasoning behind several client exceptions. I asked that the report distinguish a named replacement from a replacement who had practised the decisions. The people director worried that this would undermine confidence in an otherwise sound succession programme. I accepted that the programme had useful foundations, but kept the untested exceptions visible in the board paper. We arranged a short rehearsal with the role holder observing rather than intervening. It exposed two approvals that still depended on personal familiarity with a client. The exercise improved the record, but I would introduce it earlier next time so that a deputy does not experience the test as a last-minute examination of personal competence.
02Keeping the founder’s objection in the decision record, 2023
When I recommended leaving the licence-resale arrangements, the founder’s objection concerned relationships as much as contribution. It would have been easy to summarise that position as resistance to change. Instead I asked that his account of purchasing influence and client convenience accompany the financial analysis. The board approved the staged exit with a specific review of support retention. Four affected organisations later moved their support elsewhere, demonstrating why his concern deserved more than a polite acknowledgement. I would bring that habit to an external board: identify the strongest opposing argument and ensure the follow-up measures can test it. The purpose is not to preserve every disagreement indefinitely. It is to prevent a decision record from becoming so aligned with the preferred proposal that nobody can recognise what would count as evidence against it.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to join | Technology and service risk · People and succession |
|---|
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 20 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Business services · Public-service support · Technical maintenance
- Company type
- Privately owned service organisation with a functioning non-executive board
- Company stage
- Preparing a leadership succession or a substantial change in its operating model
The seat I am pursuing
I am interested in a board that wants to examine how its service will continue through change, rather than recruit a technology executive primarily for introductions. A chair who welcomes specific questions and distinguishes oversight from operational intervention would be important to me. I would also look for a management team willing to describe incomplete work without treating every qualification as a failure. The appointment should have a clear contribution in mind and enough independence of thought around the table to challenge my own assumptions. I would not seek a seat where the expected role is to endorse a transition date already decided elsewhere, or where client confidentiality is treated as an inconvenience to be worked around.
Board and committee exposure
Served as a director
Velmoraine Systems
Company board, executive director
January 2021–present
Presents company plans and participates in board decisions; recuses where required by the board’s conflict process. This is an executive appointment, not an independent seat.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Velmoraine Systems
Company board, invited operating presentations
2016–2020
Presented service capacity and transition reviews as chief operating officer, without a board vote or director appointment during that period.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
My present appointment and proposed external search are in Canada. I make no claim to Indian databank registration or eligibility; a role in another jurisdiction would require its own review.
- Chair-led induction on the difference between management reporting and board decision records, completed on joining the board in 2021.
- Annual board workshops using anonymised service-transition scenarios to examine oversight and escalation, with advisers engaged by the company.