My contribution to a board
Most boards now receive a data-security report, and many receive reports built on operational data. Fewer ask how that data was produced. I can help a board examine both questions. I know how a figure gets onto a dashboard in a freight network: who keys it, what is measured and what is declared, which part is estimated, and where a person's information travels on the way. That knowledge transfers to other operating businesses with large field workforces or customer records. I would bring practical questions about personal information held outside head office, about data requested by platforms and foreign customers, and about emissions figures that customers will rely on in their own reports. I have reported to an audit and risk committee for four years but have never served as a director. I would expect to join a committee rather than chair one, and to rely on the company's counsel for legal conclusions while making sure the board hears the operational facts those conclusions depend on.
Judgement in practice
01Asking how an input was measured before approving a saving
The load model promised RMB41 million a year and delivered RMB22.6 million once the volume data was measured rather than declared. The lesson for a board is not that models overstate. It is that a projected saving should arrive with a description of its inputs and a plan for checking them. If management brought a similar proposal to a board I sat on, I would ask which inputs were measured, how large the error might be, and when the board would see the result of a first deployment. I would also ask who could override the system and whether those decisions were recorded. Those questions slow approval slightly. They also prevent a board from celebrating a figure that has not yet been tested against the trucks.
02Treating a customer's data request as a governance matter
The control-tower tender looked like a sales decision. It was in fact a decision about the personal information of more than 400,000 people a year and about legal exposure in two jurisdictions. A board should know when a commercial condition carries that kind of weight, and management should bring it forward before signature, not after. On another board I would ask whether the company keeps a catalogue of what data may leave the country and who approves exceptions. I would want the cost of a careful answer stated plainly: we gave up roughly RMB110 million of a tender. Directors can accept that cost or decide otherwise, but they should make the choice knowingly rather than discover it in an incident report.
My first year on a board
I would spend the first months away from the boardroom as much as in it. I would ask to visit two or three operating sites and to watch how frontline staff record the data that later appears in board papers. I would read the last two years of committee minutes to understand which questions directors have already pursued, so that I do not reopen settled debates. With the chair's agreement, I would meet the heads of legal, operations and data separately, because their accounts of the same risk often differ in useful ways. By the second meeting I hope to contribute one or two specific questions rather than general observations. By the end of the year I would ask the chair for a candid view of whether my questions have helped the board decide, and whether I have stayed within a non-executive role. I would treat that conversation as part of the work rather than a courtesy.
Conflicts and their management
Three kinds of conflict seem likely. The first is commercial: Qianmoyun works with platforms, shippers and subcontracted carriers, and a company I join could be a customer, a supplier or a competitor of ours. I would decline a seat with a direct competitor in less-than-truckload freight. With customers and suppliers, I would disclose the relationship and leave any related discussion. The second concerns information. I know our pricing, lane volumes and data arrangements with platforms, and I would bring none of that into another boardroom, nor carry anything back. The third is time. Twenty days a year must cover reading, site visits and committee work as well as meetings, and an incident at Qianmoyun could take my attention suddenly. If that happened more than once, I would tell the chair and offer to step back rather than serve inattentively. I would also ask the company secretary to keep my declared interests on file and review them with me each year, because relationships between carriers, platforms and shippers change faster than board calendars.
My independence statement
I am a full-time executive of Qianmoyun Freight and hold options under its employee scheme. We contract with carriers, platforms and shippers across China, so any company I join may already know us. I will list those facts in full; whether I qualify as independent is for the board and its advisers to decide under the applicable rules.
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 20 days per year
- Current directorships
- 0
- Sectors
- Logistics and freight services · Public transport operators · Consumer services with large delivery or location records
- Company type
- Privately held or listed Chinese service company whose operations depend on large records about people and vehicles
- Company stage
- A business formalising data security, personal-information handling or emissions reporting for its customers
The seat I am pursuing
I am looking for a first non-executive seat at a company that runs physical operations and holds data about the people involved: drivers, passengers, recipients or field staff. Freight and logistics are where I know the work best. A public transport operator or a consumer-service business with a large delivery operation would also fit. The board I would value is one that wants a member who can read operating data critically and who understands how personal-information obligations work in practice across depots, franchise partners and contractors. I do not offer expertise in finance, capital markets or the law, and I would not pretend otherwise. A risk or audit committee role would make the best use of what I know. I want a seat where I can learn from directors with different experience and where the company is prepared to hear a careful answer even when it costs something.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to join | Risk · Audit · Technology and data, where constituted |
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Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is an Indian register and does not apply to Chinese appointments. I have not registered and am not seeking a seat in India.
- I have been studying how Chinese listed-company rules for independent directors set expectations on the number of seats held and on time spent at the company each year.
- I meet two experienced non-executive directors each quarter to review board papers and discuss how committees follow up on management actions.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Qianmoyun Freight
Board of directors
March 2022–present
Presents the annual data and personal-information plan and the measured results of major model deployments; no director appointment.
Reported to a committee
Qianmoyun Freight
Audit and risk committee
March 2022–present
Reports twice a year on data-security incidents, open personal-information risks, cross-border requests and the reliability of customer emissions figures.