My contribution to a board
I would bring a disciplined view of what customers actually understand, and experience of putting that evidence in front of executives who would prefer a different answer. Most boards receive customer information as satisfaction scores, complaint volumes and marketing returns. Those measures matter, but they rarely show whether people understood what they bought or what the company changed. I have built comprehension testing, a claims register and closure-impact reviews in a regulated bank, and reported them to its risk committee. I can help a board ask where its communication creates risk: a headline that is accurate only under conditions, a sustainability claim without an evidence owner, a service change announced in language that hides its consequences. I also understand the commercial side of those questions. Each of my cases cost the bank something, and I can explain how I judged whether the cost was worth bearing. I have not yet served on a company board, and my non-profit board is small, so I expect to learn the formal responsibilities with care.
Judgement in practice
01Accepting a lower inflow to protect what customers believed
In the 2023 savings campaign, directors would have seen €468 million against a €600 million plan and could reasonably have asked why marketing chose a weaker headline. My judgement was that inflow alone was the wrong measure; what mattered was money that stayed and customers who were not surprised by their statements. I agreed those measures with the chief executive before launch, so that neither side could reinterpret the result afterwards. As a director I would ask for the same discipline: which measures will judge a decision, settled before the outcome is known. I would also ask who else an attractive new offer affects. In our case the answer was 164,000 existing customers on an older account, and we reached them later than we should have. A board is well placed to raise that question because it sees the whole customer base, not only the campaign in front of it.
02Questioning a claim that everyone in the room wanted to keep
The renovation-loan carbon claim had support from the agency, the sustainability team and much of the lending team, and it was nine days from launch. Withdrawing it cost €260,000 and five weeks. What I weighed was not whether the claim was probably true, but whether the bank could show it was true to a customer or a supervisor who asked. Boards meet the same situation with environmental commitments, product features and service promises. I would ask three things: who owns the evidence, how it is collected, and what the company would say if the claim were challenged next month. I would also try to arrive with an alternative rather than only an objection, as I did here. A director who only blocks wording teaches management to stop showing wording to the board, which is the opposite of what oversight needs.
My first year on a board
I would spend the opening months understanding how the company describes itself to customers and how those descriptions are approved. That means reading product terms, complaints reports and a sample of ordinary correspondence alongside the board papers, and asking to listen to customer calls with the relevant team. I would meet the heads of risk, compliance, customer service and marketing separately, because each tends to see a different part of the same problem. I would not propose new reporting during the first two quarters. In the second half of the year I would hope to agree with the chair one area where the board's view of customer outcomes could be sharper, and to test it in a single committee before suggesting anything wider. At the end of the year I would ask the chair directly whether my questions had been useful, or merely familiar habits carried over from banking.
Conflicts and their management
My main conflict is my employer. While I lead marketing at Vaerenbosch, I could not serve on the board of a bank, a savings provider or any company that competes with us for deposits or mortgages, and I would decline such a seat rather than rely on recusal. Suppliers are a second source of risk: our agencies, research firms and print providers also work for other companies, and I would disclose any relationship of that kind before a nomination went further. The third is Kervelinde Money Advice Network, whose board I sit on. Vaerenbosch makes an annual donation to the association, and I have taken no part in any discussion of that donation on either side; the minutes record my absence. If a prospective company had a commercial relationship with Kervelinde or with the bank, I would raise it with the chair in our first conversation. Any appointment also needs my chief executive's written consent, which I would share with the nominating committee.
My independence statement
I hold no shares in, and have no family or paid tie to, any company I am considering. Whether I count as independent at a particular company is for its board and advisers to judge under the rules that apply there, and I will give them whatever information they need.
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 22 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Insurers · Utilities and energy supply · Telecommunications providers · Cooperatives and mutual organisations
- Company type
- Mid-sized consumer-facing company or member-owned organisation outside banking
- Company stage
- Established business reviewing how it explains prices, products or service changes to customers
The seat I am pursuing
I am pursuing a first non-executive seat at a consumer-facing company, ideally a mid-sized insurer, utility, telecommunications provider or member-owned organisation outside banking, where customer trust is both a commercial asset and a regulatory concern. I would expect to join the audit and risk committee, or a customer or conduct committee, as a member. I am not ready to chair a committee and would not accept a role that assumed I was. A listed Belgian company would apply the Belgian Code on Corporate Governance, and I would expect its board to explain how it assesses independence under that code and company law rather than presume my own conclusion. I would value a board that wants a director to ask what customers understood, and that is prepared to hear an answer it may not like.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to join | Audit and risk · Customer or conduct |
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Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
I live and work in Belgium and am not pursuing an Indian board. The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is therefore not relevant to my position, and I have not registered with it.
- Completed a twelve-session non-executive director programme in Brussels during 2025, covering directors' duties under Belgian company law and committee practice.
- Seven years on the unpaid board of a debt-advice association, including approval of annual accounts and funding decisions.
- Annual attendance at our board risk committee's conduct and complaints review since 2022.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Vaerenbosch Savings Bank
Board risk committee; full board on brand strategy
2022–present
Presents an annual customer-understanding and complaints report to the risk committee, and brand strategy to the board when invited; not a director.
Served as a director
Kervelinde Money Advice Network
Board of directors; accounts review group
2019–present
Unpaid board member of a non-profit association that helps households with debt; approves annual accounts and funding priorities with eight fellow directors.