What a plant-systems executive offers a supervisory board
My contribution to a board
I would bring a working knowledge of the systems through which an industrial company now runs: shop-floor execution, ERP, plant networks and supplier data. Many supervisory boards receive reports on these subjects without a member who has carried such a programme and seen where it fails. I can help a board ask what a security report does not cover, whether a digital investment depends on behaviour that has not yet changed, and whether a reported figure can be traced to a source. I can also tell when a programme is late for a sound reason and when it is late because a decision has been avoided. I would not try to act as the company's CIO from the board. My questions would be about evidence, ownership and risk, and I would accept that management decides. Because this would be my first appointment, I would start as a committee member and learn the company's business before speaking to its systems.
Judgement in practice
01
Asking what the control does not cover
When I report on plant-network security, I begin with the parts of our estate the controls do not reach: older test-bench computers that cannot be patched, and machines whose builders still hold service credentials. The supervisory board chair once told me this was the first security report she had read that started with its limits. On another board I would ask management the same question: which systems sit outside this assessment, and who has accepted that? I would not expect every gap to be closed. Some are reasonable to carry. I would expect each one to have an owner and a date for review, and I would want the board's minutes to show that it understood the residual exposure, rather than a statement that the company was secure.
02
Separating a delayed benefit from an avoided cost
Choosing traceability before machine-output dashboards meant deferring a measurable saving in favour of a cost we could not size until a complaint arrived. A board faced with similar choices tends to favour the item with a number attached. I would ask management to describe both sides in the same terms: the benefit deferred, the exposure reduced and the evidence for each. I would also ask who disagreed and why, because a proposal that reaches the board without its strongest objection has been simplified. The board's job is not to choose between two executives' preferences. It is to make sure the decision has been taken with its costs visible, and that the company will later be able to tell whether the choice was right.
My first year on a board
My first months would go on the business, not its technology. I would ask the chair for time at the main plants, a session with the external auditor, and the last two years of committee papers. I would read the risk register and then compare it with what operators and maintenance colleagues describe when they show me their work, because the two rarely match completely. In committee I would listen for several meetings before raising systems questions, and I would put them to the chair first if they touched management's performance. By the first budget cycle I would want to understand how digital and security spending is approved, which projects are underway and what the company has already accepted as residual risk. I would also ask to meet the person who runs the company's plant systems, without management's case prepared in advance, so that my later questions rest on what I have seen rather than on my own employer's habits. At the end of the year I would ask the chair whether my contribution helped the committee's work or distracted it, and adjust accordingly.
Conflicts and their management
My main constraint is that I remain a full-time executive. Halvesberg buys castings, steel, seals, actuators and software, and sells to utilities and plant builders across Europe, so a company I join could appear on either side of our ledger. I would list those relationships for the chair before any conversation went far, and I would not join a competitor in valves or flow control. If a supplier or customer relationship arose during my term, I would declare it and leave the discussion, and if such exclusions became frequent I would offer to step down. I would never carry Halvesberg's commercial or security information into another board, nor that board's into Halvesberg. Our chief executive must consent in writing, and my supervisory-board work would be scheduled around our audit calendar and plant shutdowns, which already fix several weeks of my year.
My independence statement
I would test independence against the specific company, its owners and its suppliers and customers, with the chair and the company's advisers, before accepting any description of myself as independent. My employment at Halvesberg, its supplier relationships and any shareholding would be disclosed in full. I would not join the board of a valve or flow-control competitor.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Halvesberg Armaturen GmbH
Supervisory board
January 2022–present
Presents the annual technology plan and a twice-yearly security and systems report as CIO; not a member of the board.
Reported to a committee
Halvesberg Armaturen GmbH
Audit committee of the supervisory board
July 2018–present
Reports on IT general controls, audit findings and their remediation, alongside the external auditor.