My contribution to a board
I could help directors examine whether a commercial proposition describes the outcome the company can actually deliver and the evidence available for it. My experience includes approving a campaign that crossed that boundary, so I would not approach the issue as a general instruction for others to be more careful. The useful questions concern responsibility, comparability and representation: who owns the remaining task, whether an illustrative price describes comparable work and whose experience a research conclusion represents. I would first learn the receiving company’s service model and assurance process. Directors need to understand the material promise and its unresolved dependencies without taking over copy approval or operating design. A contribution could make a persuasive proposition easier to challenge before it becomes a customer expectation, including where a narrower statement is commercially less convenient but more useful to the decision the customer is being asked to make.
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 22 days per year
- Current directorships
- 0
- Sectors
- Workplace and property services · Business services with shared customer responsibilities
- Company type
- A private services enterprise whose board wants the commercial proposition tested against its operating boundaries
- Company stage
- Revising customer promises or expanding a service offer across unfamiliar buyer groups
The seat I am pursuing
I would consider a first non-executive contribution under a chair who expects directors to ask what the customer is being invited to believe and which evidence supports that belief. Governance learning and appointment-specific assessment must precede acceptance. Presenting commercial matters to a board as CMO does not establish statutory director experience, and I am not offering to chair a statutory committee. Initial work could involve customer-commitment, brand or commercial-risk discussions alongside established governance skills. The board should identify the question my experience would help it examine and the assurance it already receives. Management must retain campaign and service responsibility. I could contribute where colleagues want a proposition to remain persuasive because it is understood accurately, and where the company is prepared to acknowledge that an attractive customer outcome may still depend on a responsibility it does not own.
Judgement in practice
01The company’s completed activity did not establish the client’s complete outcome
The twelve-programme review separated nine clients ready for defined work from three still awaiting technology activation under their own arrangements. Our physical relocation record answered a narrower question than the campaign headline. I would ask directors how management identifies the dependencies between the company’s service endpoint and the wider outcome used to sell it. The issue is not solved by assuming every qualification belongs in small print or by making the board inspect each advertisement. Oversight should establish who approves a material promise, what evidence supports it and how an operating challenge can change the proposition before another customer relies on it. The earlier mistake is useful because the underlying service record could be accurate while the conclusion drawn from it remained too broad.
02The people who buy a service do not represent every person affected
Six buyer interviews established a useful account of procurement and move coordination. Thirty-six employee interviews raised different journey and working-pattern questions. I would ask a board which population a material research claim actually describes and whether the commercial proposition has extended that finding to another group. Additional voices can make the answer less convenient without making the original research worthless. The receiving company should preserve the distinction and identify which questions it can answer itself. In our case employment choices remained with the client. Directors could examine how research limitations reach the commercial decision, while avoiding a claim that more interviews automatically establish consent, satisfaction or support for the proposed workplace change.
My first year on a board
I would begin by following one material customer proposition from the board’s commercial discussion through its research and operating evidence to the material a prospective buyer receives. Through the chair’s agreed process, I would meet the accountable marketing, operating and professional owners to understand where a wider outcome depends on another party. I would examine how a challenge changes the proposition and how directors learn that a previously accepted claim has been narrowed. Twenty-two proposed annual days must accommodate learning, preparation, meetings and exceptional demands alongside executive responsibilities. I would ask the chair whether my questions clarify the business commitment or pull colleagues into reproducing campaign decisions. A useful first-year contribution could establish a clearer account of one consequential promise, the evidence supporting it, the dependencies still outside the company’s control and the route by which an unresolved customer question returns to the people authorised to change the offer.
Conflicts and their management
My role gives access to private relocation plans, client workplace changes, pricing assumptions, research interviews and planned campaigns. Those relationships need examination even without a personal shareholding. I would disclose employer, investor, customer, property-service and agency connections before receiving confidential material for an outside appointment. The proposed company would need its own eligibility and independence review, and my employer would need to consent before acceptance. I would not bring private employee interview material or a client’s planned move into another board’s commercial comparison. A particular conflict may be managed through recusal, but repeated exclusion from the principal customer or strategy agenda could make the appointment ineffective. Capacity must include periods when a significant campaign correction or client transition requires executive attention. I would decline a role expecting privileged customer access, informal operating approval or the use of my employer’s research as a substitute for the receiving company’s own evidence and accountable management.
My independence statement
Employer, investor, client, property-service and research-agency connections require appointment-specific assessment. No personal equity is held; that does not establish independence by itself.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
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| Ready to join | Customer-commitment and commercial-risk discussions · Brand and research-evidence oversight where constituted |
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Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Qelzavni Workplace Moves
Board commercial-proposition and customer-risk discussions
April 2022–present
Presents marketing evidence through the CEO without statutory director status.
Reported to a committee
Qelzavni Workplace Moves
Commercial review through the CMO
April 2017–March 2022
Reported withdrawal of the Monday-readiness claim and the revised responsibility account.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
Governance preparation and any applicable registration remain to be completed before accepting an outside seat. I claim no assessment result or exemption.
- Preparing to examine customer commitments from a non-executive position
- Learning how collective scrutiny differs from executive campaign responsibility