Lanxin Yuchi · Chief Product Officer · China
I would bring working knowledge of how product choices reach the people a company serves, especially where the user, the payer and the person who answers for harm are different. Boards in consumer-service companies see revenue, conversion and complaint figures. They see less often the defaults, renewal flows and contact features that produce those figures. I can help directors ask which design decisions sit behind a number, who bears the cost when a default is wrong and whether the company has estimated the review or service work its growth will create. My experience covers older learners, children and guardians, subscription pricing and content review for more than a million paying members. It does not include audit, capital raising or the duties of a director, which I would need to learn. I have presented to a board for five years without belonging to one, so I would expect to contribute first through a committee concerned with consumer protection, sustainability or strategy.
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Sustainability and consumer-protection committee · Strategy committee |
I am seeking a first independent or non-executive seat in a company whose customers include older people, children or families, and whose board wants a member able to examine how its products treat them. A listed education or eldercare-services company, or a growing consumer internet company preparing to list, would be the most natural fit. I would want to join a committee overseeing consumer protection, sustainability or strategy, and I would not seek to chair one in my first term. I would decline a board looking mainly for a growth adviser or a product consultant, because that work belongs to management. In return I would offer twenty days a year, preparation that includes using the product, and a clear account of what I know and what I do not.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Board of directors: quarterly product-risk report
March 2021–present
Presents complaints, children's safety, renewal practice and reviewer workload; the 2023 children's visibility paper and the 2025 messaging rules were discussed at board meetings. No directorship.
Reported to a committee
Operating committee of investor representatives and management
2014–2016
Reported on course-package terms, refund disputes and mobile adoption as product director; not a committee member.
The trial decision began with a figure our board had seen many times: a high conversion rate. Nobody had asked what share of those conversions members would have chosen if asked directly. On another board I would put the same question about any growth measure tied to a default: how many customers acted, and how many simply did not act in time? I would also ask who receives the complaint when a default is wrong. In our case it was often an adult child rather than the member. A board should not redesign a renewal flow. It should make sure management has measured the right thing, and that a fall in a headline figure after a fairer design is reported honestly rather than treated as failure. I would support a management team that accepts a lower number for a sound reason.
Our messaging and children's decisions both turned on review workload that had grown faster than anyone planned. A board approving a new community feature, market or product line should ask what contact it creates between people, how much of that contact will need human review and who will pay for the reviewing. I would ask for those estimates in the investment paper rather than in a later risk report. I would also ask how management protects the most exposed users when a queue grows, because priority rules decide who waits. Directors should not write moderation rules, and they should be wary of overriding the people who apply them. They should notice when a growth plan quietly assumes that safety work will absorb the increase without new people or tools.
Before acting as a director I would spend time as a customer. With the chair's agreement I would use the company's products or services as an ordinary customer would, read a sample of complaints and meet the people who handle them, alongside the usual briefings from management and the board secretary. I would study the committee's papers from the previous year and ask which decisions the directors would now revisit. My early questions would concern measures: what the board sees about customers who are older, young or paying for someone else, and what it does not see. I would not propose new reports or measures in my first two meetings, however obvious a gap might seem. By the end of the year I would ask the chair for a candid view of whether my contribution had been useful, and I would expect to have completed any training that the company's listing rules require.
Three kinds of relationship would need examination. The first is competition: learning apps, education services and other companies courting older consumers may compete with Fenqiluo for members, teachers or staff. The second is commercial: our payment providers, cloud and telecommunications suppliers, content partners and contracted teachers may also work with a prospective company. The third is ownership: our two venture investors hold portfolios that could include that company or its competitors. I would disclose all three to its chair and to our chief executive before any discussion progressed. I would never carry product plans, member data or teacher terms between companies. If a conflict would recur on matters central to that board's work, I would decline the seat. Rules for independent directors of Chinese listed companies, revised by the securities regulator in 2023, limit how many such roles one person may hold and set expectations of time spent on the company; I would confirm the current requirements before accepting, and I would hold only one external role while I remain an executive.
I am employed by Fenqiluo and hold shares through its employee plan, so I could not be independent of Fenqiluo or of a company competing with it for learners or teachers. For any other company, its chair and advisers would need to assess my relationships against the applicable rules; I would give them a complete list rather than my own conclusion.
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The Indian Independent Directors' Databank does not apply to me: I live and work in China and am seeking a Chinese board role. I am not registered and have no reason to register.