My contribution to a board
I could help a consumer-business board examine what a brand’s offer requires after the sale has been recorded. Range continuity, replacement requests, product presentation and service across channels all have consequences for cash, incentives and reputation. My experience would be useful where those subjects are currently discussed in separate committees or departmental reports. I would ask the board to understand the obligation it is accepting, the resources behind it and the evidence that would justify changing course.
That contribution would not be a mandate to manage the merchandising team from the boardroom. At Lanshuyu I can resolve a disagreement between the shop and digital heads because I am their chief executive. On an external board I would ask management to explain the disagreement through the agreed process and contribute to the board’s decision. A shop visit would need a clear purpose and coordination with the executive team. I would avoid turning a personal shopping preference into an instruction about the range.
I would initially seek membership rather than a committee chair. Customer and commercial risk, or management development, are the areas where my record is most relevant. I can read an operating proposal critically, but I would not claim specialist accounting or legal expertise. The nomination discussion should compare my experience with the board’s actual gaps, including the experience already held by other directors. A company needs more than several people who have all run broadly similar businesses.
Judgement in practice
01A service expense without a fictional return calculation
The first replacement-piece review showed an average direct fulfilment cost of RMB58 and replacement revenue of RMB42 on completed requests, excluding the original investment. A draft board paper proposed presenting the difference as a customer-retention investment with an assumed future sales benefit. I asked colleagues to remove the unsupported return calculation. We could explain the service purpose, its defined scope and what customers had actually requested; we could not establish the future value of every satisfied customer. The board continued the programme with its cost visible and required a better record of demand and unresolved cases. In another boardroom I would make the same distinction between a reasoned strategic choice and a return claim that the evidence cannot support. Directors can accept a bounded expense without pretending that uncertainty has already been converted into a financial benefit.
02One sale and more than one useful contribution
The shop-assistance pilot prompted a proposal to recognise the online order as store revenue as well as digital revenue. It would have made the shop comparison look more generous, but the two channel totals would no longer describe the company’s actual sales without a further reconciliation. I supported a separate assistance measure and an explicit reward expense instead. The digital director’s objection about paying for demand that might already exist remained valid and was recorded in the continuation review. That experience would make me attentive to incentive measures presented beside financial results. I would ask what each number counts and whether the same event appears more than once. The board should be able to recognise a contribution without accepting a reporting convention that obscures the underlying transaction or makes future performance harder to compare.
My first year on a board
I would begin by understanding how the prospective company describes its customer promise and how that description is translated into range, channel and service decisions. I would read a small number of actual proposals and their later reviews, including one that was stopped or reduced. That would show more about decision quality than a tour of successful launches alone. I would also ask how unresolved customer issues reach the board and what discretion management has to settle them.
During induction I would meet the relevant functional leaders through the chair and chief executive. I would want to understand their measures before questioning the conclusions those measures support. A useful first-year contribution might be to clarify the evidence required for a new direct channel or a longer product-support commitment. I would not begin by importing Lanshuyu’s replacement programme into an unrelated range. At the annual review, I would ask whether my contribution helped directors make a choice, whether I listened to contrary evidence and whether I respected the line between oversight and management.
Conflicts and their management
Consumer businesses can overlap through manufacturing partners, landlords, fulfilment providers and ownership interests even when their shop brands look different. Before accepting a role, I would disclose relevant relationships and ask the prospective company to examine them with my employer. A supplier negotiation or planned product launch should never become material available for another board’s commercial advantage. I would expect the review to continue as the business and its relationships changed, with appropriate restrictions on participation where necessary.
I could make twenty days a year available for one external appointment, subject to agreement and a calendar that includes preparation, travel and unscheduled decisions. I would want to discuss what happens when a seasonal trading peak coincides with a difficult board issue. The commitment should be credible under those conditions, not merely when meetings fall conveniently. I would decline a role whose principal attraction to the company was access to our sourcing network or customer channels. A director relationship should have a purpose that remains defensible without any such commercial exchange.
My independence statement
I am an executive director at Lanshuyu. Any external appointment would need its own assessment of ownership, trading relationships and personal interests; I do not infer independent status from being outside the proposed management team.
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 20 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Homeware and household products · Specialist consumer retail · Brands developing direct customer channels
- Company type
- Private consumer business with a controlling family or long-term investor and a board willing to hear outside challenge
- Company stage
- Established product business revising its customer offer or distribution model
The seat I am pursuing
I am interested in an established consumer company reconsidering what it promises customers and how it distributes responsibility for that promise. A controlling family may want a more independent challenge to familiar practices; an investor-backed brand may need a fuller view of the service costs behind rapid channel growth. Either could be a sensible setting if the chair welcomes evidence that complicates the preferred proposal. I would look for directors who can disagree without requiring management to choose a shareholder camp. My aim would be to contribute operating judgement while helping the board preserve a coherent company view. I would not accept a decorative seat or one that expected me to act as an unpaid commercial intermediary.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to join | Customer and commercial risk · People and management development |
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Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
My operating and board experience is in China. I have not registered with the Indian databank and make no exemption claim; any appointment in another market would need an appropriate local requirements review.
- Director induction on the company’s reserved decisions and shareholder arrangements in 2021.
- Annual chair-led review of incentive reporting, conflicts and the distinction between operating measures and financial results.
Board and committee exposure
Served as a director
Lanshuyu Homeware
Company board, executive director
February 2021–present
Joined the board on appointment as CEO; carries executive responsibility and does not claim independence.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Lanshuyu Homeware
Invited operating reviews
February 2016–January 2021
Presented shop, fulfilment and service proposals as COO; attendance did not constitute a directorship.