Laurent Vendrecourt · Chief Marketing Officer · Europe

Customer trust and conduct risk as one board subject

My contribution to a board

Boards of consumer businesses often see customer trust as a brand score and conduct risk as a compliance report. I would help a board see that they are the same subject, measured at different moments. In energy supply I have watched the gap between what customers expected and what they were billed predict complaints, arrears and departures months before they appeared in the accounts. A director with that experience can ask useful questions of a water company announcing a tariff increase, an insurer repricing renewals or a telecommunications provider changing a contract mid-term. I would also bring practical knowledge of environmental claims under the new European consumer rules, which many boards now need to oversee without a marketing specialist in the room. I have not served as a director. I would start as a committee member under an experienced chair, bring evidence rather than opinions to discussions of customers, and leave marketing execution to the company’s own executives. I can also explain to fellow directors how a marketing team’s incentives shape what customers hear, and what to ask when those incentives reward sign-ups over retention.

Judgement in practice

Asking what the customer would hear before approving a price change

When our trading team proposed higher advances in 2022, the executive committee first discussed the commercial risk of writing to customers at all. The more useful question was what each household would experience if we stayed silent, and when. As a director I would ask that of any repricing paper: which customers are affected, what they will see on their next bill, how soon they will learn of it and from whom. I would want the answer supported by the company's own contact and complaint data, not by an assumption about how customers usually respond. I would not tell management how to word its letters. I would expect the board to see the customer consequence alongside the margin consequence, and to know what payment support exists before the change takes effect rather than after the arrears appear.

Separating a defensible claim from one a customer would understand

Our green-tariff wording in 2023 was lawful, and legal colleagues were right to say so. The board-level issue was different: whether a reasonable customer, reading the claim, would reach a conclusion we could support. Directors overseeing any environmental or service claim should ask both questions and expect two separate answers. I would ask management what proportion of customers understood the claim as intended, how that was tested and what the company would lose by withdrawing it. That last figure matters, because a board that approves a withdrawal without knowing its cost has not made a decision. The conversion we lost, and the margin we gave up on the Belgian-origin product, were facts our board needed. A director should insist on seeing both sides before endorsing or rejecting the change.

My first year on a board

My first months would go on the company's customers rather than its board papers. I would ask to sit in on complaint handling, listen to recorded calls with consent, read a sample of ombudsman or regulator cases and see the letters customers receive when prices change. That would tell me which of the board's figures describe the customer's experience and which describe internal activity. With the committee chair, I would agree two or three questions I should help the board keep under review, such as how vulnerable customers are identified or how environmental statements are substantiated. I would also read the last two years of the company’s price-change communications before my first committee meeting, so that my questions start from what customers were actually told. I would not propose new dashboards in my first year. By the end of it I would ask the chair for direct feedback on whether my contributions changed any decision, and say candidly which parts of the business I still did not understand.

Conflicts and their management

Three relationships need examination before any appointment. Ambrevelle buys services from telecommunications providers, insurers and comparison sites, and sells electricity and gas to small businesses that could include a prospective company or its suppliers. Our partner installers work with housing providers and may bid for their renovation programmes. And as a marketer I hold commercial information about customer behaviour that a company in an adjacent market could value. I would list every such link for the chair and my own chief executive, obtain written consent from Ambrevelle and decline any board whose business competes with energy supply or depends materially on us. Where a link is minor, I would declare it and leave the room on any related decision. If I found myself absent from a recurring subject, I would resign rather than serve a board in part.

My independence statement

I would test my independence by following money and information: whether the company buys from, sells to or competes with Ambrevelle or our partner installers, and whether I would hold information that either side would expect me to keep to myself. I would put that analysis in writing for the chair and accept the board's own conclusion under the code and law that apply.

Committee contribution

Chair and member readiness
Capacity	Committees
Ready to join	Audit and risk, with emphasis on customer and conduct risk · Customer or sustainability committee

Capacity and preferences

Time available: 18 days per year
Current directorships: 0
Sectors: Drinking water and waste services · Telecommunications · Consumer insurance · Social and mid-market rental housing
Company type: Regulated consumer-facing company, whether privately held, mutual or listed, with a board that keeps oversight separate from management
Company stage: Facing price changes, tighter consumer rules or a loss of customer confidence that the board wants examined openly

The seat I am pursuing

The seat I want is a committee role at a company whose customers cannot easily go without its service and whose board wants a closer view of how those customers are treated. Water, telecommunications, insurance and housing all fit. I would prefer a board with an experienced chair and at least one director who has served through a period of public criticism, because I would learn from both. I am not looking for a marketing advisory role described as a directorship, nor a seat where my experience is wanted mainly for campaign approval. My availability is about eighteen days a year, which I would test against the committee calendar before accepting. Under the governance code and company law that apply, the board, not I, would judge my independence, and I would give it everything it needed to do so.

Board and committee exposure

Presented to the Board or a committee

Ambrevelle

Board of directors: annual customer, brand and commercial plan

January 2022–present

Presents the marketing plan and customer-treatment results to the board each year as chief marketing officer; not a director.

Reported to a committee

Ambrevelle

Audit and risk committee

March 2023–present

Reports twice a year on complaints, ombudsman referrals, vulnerable-customer treatment and the substantiation of environmental claims.

Presented to the Board or a committee

Soléverne

Owners' board

September 2013–February 2018

Presented network commercial plans and installer-standards proposals to the founder-owners' board.

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 the European appointments I am considering. I am not registered with it, and I would look at it again only if an Indian board approached me.

I am studying the 2020 Belgian Code on Corporate Governance and the duties Belgian company law places on directors, concentrating on how committees oversee conduct and customer risk.
After each of my reports to Ambrevelle's audit and risk committee I ask its chair what in my paper helped the committee decide and what only described activity.