Write to me with a question about agents, branches or control roles

Most messages that reach me fall into three groups, and I answer each differently. If you chair a board or a nomination committee outside financial services and are weighing an independent non-executive director with workforce experience, a brief description of the company, the committee and the days involved is enough for me to reply. If you are organising a discussion about agency forces, how control staff should be assessed or how regional leaders are moved, tell me the audience and the question you want argued; I decline panels that have no question. If you lead HR at another insurer and want to compare notes on a specific problem, I am glad to, provided we both keep our companies' data out of it. Search firms should know that I am staying at Songbai. Agents and employees of Songbai, past or present, should raise contract or employment matters through the HR service line, the agency grievance process or the whistleblowing channel, which I cannot replace. I will not comment on matters before our regulator, and I ask that nobody attach personnel files, agent records or policy documents to a first message.