My contribution to a board
Manufacturing boards increasingly approve technology they cannot see: networked machines, model-based engineering, robotic cells and the security arrangements that defence and infrastructure customers require. Directors are asked to accept summaries of that risk, often coloured green, amber or red. I can help a board ask for the underlying evidence. Which machines run unsupported software, and what separates them from the office network? Which instruction reaches the shop floor, and can the company show it matched the approved revision? What happens to throughput and skills if a robot cell fails, or if the one technician who understands it leaves? I have answered those questions as an executive, so I know which answers are easy to give and hard to prove. I would bring that as a committee member, not as a substitute chief technology officer. Management must own the systems; the board must understand them well enough to judge whether management's confidence is earned. My limits are real: I have not been a director, my finance knowledge is that of an engineer who has defended capital papers, and my sector experience is in fabrication and machining. I would expect to learn from the company's own specialists and from directors who have governed through very different pressures.
Judgement in practice
01Asking what a replacement programme would actually fix
When replacement of eleven machines was proposed as the answer to an audit concern, the board was effectively asked to buy capacity and security in one decision. The better board question was whether those were the same problem. Security exposure came from how programs moved and which computers touched the machines; capacity was a separate question with its own evidence. Separating them let the company fix the exposure for A$1.9 million and then decide on replacement, three machines and A$4.6 million, on capacity grounds. On another board I would ask the same thing of any large combined proposal: which part addresses which risk, and what evidence supports each part on its own. I would also ask who disagrees within management and why, because the production manager's warning about the night shift was correct and deserved a direct answer.
02Pricing a capability before it has been proved
The robotic welding tender showed how easily a board can price an unproven capability as if it already existed. Three cells looked cheaper per joint, but no robotic procedure had been qualified, and the workforce consequences were unresolved. A director's role is not to choose the welding method. It is to ask what the price assumes, what must be true for the assumption to hold, and how long it will take to prove. I would want to see the qualification plan, the operator plan and the downside if qualification slipped, which in our case it did by three months. I would also ask management to say plainly what the company gives up by moving cautiously. We received a smaller share of the programme, and a board should hear that cost without it being softened or exaggerated.
My first year on a board
My first months would be spent learning how the company makes money and where its operations are fragile. I would ask the chair and the chief executive for a plant visit with the people who run the night shift, not only the managers who present to the board. I would read the last two years of risk papers and audit findings, and ask for the company's register of critical equipment and control systems, or the reasons it does not have one. Before offering any view on technology investment I would want to understand the board's existing risk appetite, the role of internal audit, and which questions directors already find useful. I would keep to the agenda of the committee I joined and route requests through its chair rather than directly to managers. At the end of the year I would ask the chair for frank feedback on whether my questions improved decisions, and what I should stop doing.
Conflicts and their management
My practical conflicts would come from three directions. Customers: Kestwater supplies naval prime contractors and water utilities, so a board seat at a defence prime, a competing fabricator or a significant customer would be unsuitable while I remain there. Suppliers: I influence roughly A$9 million a year of purchases from machine-tool dealers, automation integrators and software vendors, and I would declare any such relationship and stay out of related decisions. Information: I hold a personal security clearance and access to customers' controlled technical data; none of it can move to another board, and I would refuse any discussion that relied on it. Before accepting a seat I would obtain Kestwater's written consent and ask the company's advisers to review these points. If recusals would remove me from the decisions the board most needed me for, I would decline the role rather than serve with an empty chair.
My independence statement
Independence is a fact for the company and its advisers to test, not a description I can give myself. I would set out my Kestwater employment, any shareholding through its employee plan, my personal security clearance and every customer, supplier and competitor relationship, and decline any seat where those links would shape my judgement.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to join | Audit and risk · Technology and cyber risk |
|---|
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 22 days per year
- Current directorships
- 0
- Sectors
- Manufacturing and engineering services · Defence-industry supply chain · Water, transport and energy infrastructure suppliers
- Company type
- Private, family-owned or newly listed industrial company with a board separate from its executive team
- Company stage
- Modernising plant, data or automation while carrying an older equipment base
The seat I am pursuing
I am looking for a committee seat, most likely audit and risk or a dedicated technology committee, on the board of an industrial company that relies on plants, networks and skilled trades. Suitable companies might be family-owned manufacturers, engineering services businesses or suppliers to water, transport and energy infrastructure. I am not seeking a paid advisory relationship disguised as a directorship, or a role in which the board expects me to manage its technology team. I would value a chair who can explain why the board wants this experience and how it will judge whether the appointment has worked.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is an Indian requirement and does not apply to appointments in Australia. I have never registered, and the status shown simply reflects that. My preparation is instead directed at Australian directors' duties and the expectations of the boards I would join.
- I completed a director-education course in 2023 covering directors' duties of care and diligence under the Corporations Act 2001, financial literacy and board decision-making.
- I am studying how boards oversee cyber and operational-technology risk without drifting into management, and how audit committees test management's assurances.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Kestwater Engineering
Board technology, capital and security papers
March 2014–present
Presents technology investment, security and automation recommendations to the board; not a director.
Reported to a committee
Kestwater Engineering
Audit and risk committee
July 2019–present
Reports quarterly on operational-technology and information-security risk, open audit findings and the controller register.
Member of a committee
Quellmoor Apprentice Trust
Industry advisory committee
February 2021–present
One of seven employer members advising a not-for-profit group training organisation on engineering apprenticeship content; not a board member.