My contribution to a board
Most boards I have presented to understand revenue, margin and capital well. Fewer can tell, from the papers in front of them, whether the company's operations would survive the failure of one important piece of equipment or the absence of one experienced person. I can help a board ask those questions in concrete terms: what capacity remains when a component fails, how long backup supplies last, which customer commitments depend on assumptions nobody has tested, and whether an energy or environmental approval constrains growth the strategy takes for granted. My experience covers electrical and cooling infrastructure, construction beside live operations, round-the-clock shift teams and the division of data-security responsibility between a hosting provider and its customers. It does not cover financial reporting standards, acquisitions or consumer marketing, and I would rely on fellow directors for those. I have not served as a director. I expect to be most useful in committee work, where operating detail can be examined properly, and I would accept a chair's guidance on how much of that detail the full board needs.
Judgement in practice
01Separating a commercial risk from an operating one
During the 2022 festival request, the account team presented running Hall 4 without redundancy as a short commercial risk worth taking. My judgement was that it was an operating risk transferred to eleven other customers who had not been asked. On a board, I would look for the same confusion: a proposal that describes a risk as the company's own when part of it would fall on customers, employees or a neighbouring operation. I would ask who carries the consequence if the assumption fails and whether they have agreed to carry it. That question does not always lead to a refusal. Sometimes the people affected accept the risk for a price or a benefit. The board should decide with that allocation visible, and management should not have to defend a refusal as if it showed a lack of commercial nerve.
02Reading an approval as a lasting commitment
The Jiaxing redesign came from treating an energy approval as something the building would have to honour every year, not a hurdle cleared before construction. Boards often receive permits, licences and approvals as completed items in a project report. I would ask what each one commits the company to over the asset's life, how performance against it will be reported and what happens to future applications if the company falls short. I would also ask management to show performance at the load the asset will actually carry in its early years, since that is where our own forecasts were weakest. The aim is not to slow projects down. It is to make sure the directors approving capital understand which conditions travel with it after the ribbon is cut.
My first year on a board
I would begin by seeing the operation rather than reading about it. In the first three months I would ask to visit the sites where the company's most important systems or production run, including at least one night or weekend shift, and to meet the people who would act if something failed. I would read the last two years of incident and near-miss records before the strategy papers, because they show how a company behaves under pressure. Before my second meeting I would agree with the chair which operating questions belong to my committee and which to the full board, so that I do not crowd agendas with detail. During the year I would look for one or two assumptions in the plan that depend on capacity, energy or people the company has not yet secured, and raise them early and privately with management before raising them in the boardroom. At the end of the year I would ask the chair to tell me plainly where my contribution was less useful than intended.
Conflicts and their management
Haolinjiang has about 340 customers, most of them manufacturers and online retailers in eastern China, and its suppliers include equipment makers, construction contractors and electricity retailers. A company in any of those categories would have a commercial relationship with my employer, and some would compete with us for customers or sites. Before accepting a nomination I would give the company's chair a list of the relationships I know about and ask its company secretary to check them against its own records. I would decline a seat at a direct competitor and at any company whose purchasing from Haolinjiang I influence. Where a smaller relationship exists, I would expect to leave the room for related discussions and to have that recorded. Ruitaigang Electronics, my former employer, is a Haolinjiang customer, and I would treat it as related for this purpose. I would not carry customer information, prices or site plans between the two companies in either direction, and Haolinjiang's written consent would be a condition of any appointment.
My independence statement
I am a salaried executive and a small employee shareholder of Haolinjiang Data Services. Whether a company that buys hosting from us, competes with us or supplies our buildings could regard me as independent is for its board to judge, and I would put those relationships in front of it at the outset.
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 25 days per year
- Current directorships
- 0
- Sectors
- Manufacturing with continuous production systems · Logistics and warehousing operators · Digital and hosting services outside Haolinjiang's market
- Company type
- Privately held or listed mid-sized Chinese company whose operations depend on continuous systems
- Company stage
- Adding physical capacity, or reviewing resilience and energy commitments after growth or an operating failure
The seat I am pursuing
My preferred first seat is a non-executive or independent role at a mid-sized Chinese company, privately held or listed, whose operations cannot pause without serious consequence: an electronics or automotive-parts manufacturer with automated lines, a cold-chain or warehousing operator, or a smaller software or hosting business that does not compete with Haolinjiang. I would add most where the board is approving new capacity, a construction programme or a change in energy supply, or where it has recently experienced an operating failure and wants to understand it properly. For a listed company the CSRC's rules on independent directors would apply, and I would review my eligibility with the company's advisers rather than assume it. I would rather join an established risk or strategy committee and learn from an experienced chair than be asked to lead one immediately.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to join | Risk and business continuity · Strategy and investment · Sustainability |
|---|
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The Indian Independent Directors' Databank does not apply to me. I work in China, have not registered and would not need to for the seats I am considering.
- Studying the CSRC's rules for independent directors of listed companies, including the limits they place on concurrent seats.
- Observing, with the committee chair's agreement, how our audit committee follows continuity findings from one meeting to the next.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Haolinjiang Data Services
Board of directors
March 2021–present
Presents the operating report, construction programme and capacity commitments at each board meeting as COO; not a director.
Reported to a committee
Haolinjiang Data Services
Audit committee
2019–present
Reports twice a year on business-continuity testing, incident reviews and data-security compliance for hosted platforms.