My contribution to a board
I would bring a board an operational understanding of what a manufacturer's records can and cannot prove. Most directors see data as a technology cost or a cyber risk. I see it as the evidence a company gives customers, auditors and regulators about each product, and I can help a board test whether that evidence would hold up on the day it is needed. I have built traceability records for regulated customers, run plant systems in two industries and governed AI uses near product acceptance and employee information. I have also told a board that an operating plan it had already seen overstated a saving, and explained why.
I would be useful on three kinds of question. When management proposes a data platform, a predictive maintenance programme or an AI tool, I can help directors ask for the evidence that matters: failure counts, shadow-trial results, the cost of simpler alternatives and the limits of the model. When a company faces a customer escape or an audit finding about its records, I know the difference between a records failure and a records-assembly failure, and how long each takes to fix. When a board compares plants or business units, I can help it see whether the figures are defined the same way.
There are limits a board should know. My accounting knowledge is that of an operating executive who reads plant cost reports, so an audit committee would need its financial expertise from someone else. Cyber security at Tessandier belongs to our chief information officer, and I would not stand in for a specialist there. My aim would be a membership seat on an audit and risk or technology committee, with no chair role until I had seen a full year of its work. The habit I would bring is asking management to show a control working under test, as our traceability drill does, rather than describing it.
Judgement in practice
01Telling a board that an announced saving was overstated
In 2024 I presented to Tessandier's board the revised spindle-maintenance programme, which replaced a fleet-wide prediction rollout already described in an operating plan the board had seen. The easier course was to present the new programme as a phase of the old one. I told directors plainly that the original case had claimed C$6.1 million a year on a failure history too thin to support it, that we expected about a third of that and why. One director asked whether the operations team had been careless. I said the assumption was a common one and that the investment policy, not any individual, had allowed it through. The board approved the revised programme and the new failure-count test. As a director I would want management to bring overstated cases forward early, and I would try to make that easy for them.
02Asking the audit and risk committee to watch a drill fail
When we began timed traceability drills in 2023, the first results were poor: one drill in 2024 took nine hours and found two parts recorded against the wrong serial number. My chief executive asked whether we should wait until the results improved before reporting them. I argued that the committee should see the drills from the start, including the failures, because otherwise it would have no way to judge whether later improvement was real. The committee agreed and now receives three figures each quarter with a note on what went wrong. On a board I would ask for evidence of how a control performs under test, not only whether it exists, and I would accept a worse-looking report as the price of knowing what it means.
03Declining a sponsor's donation at a training not-for-profit
In 2022, as a director of Atelier-école Rive-Sud, I recommended that the board decline a machine-tool distributor's offer to donate three machining centres in exchange for the school training only on its controllers. The equipment was badly needed, and two directors were keen to accept. My concern was that our graduates would be less employable at plants using other controllers, and that the school would become a sales channel. The board negotiated a smaller donation without the condition and raised the balance through two employers. As a non-executive I try to ask what a gift or a contract will oblige the organisation to do, not only what it costs.
My first year on a board
Before my first meeting I would ask for three things beyond the usual induction pack: the latest customer or regulatory audit reports with management's responses, any product recall, escape or records finding of the past three years, and the papers in which the board approved its two largest technology or plant-systems investments. Those documents show what the company promises about its products and how carefully its board tests technology spending.
During the first two quarters I would spend a day in a plant and follow one finished product back through its records, as a customer's quality auditor would, with whoever owns those records beside me. I would hold separate conversations with the chair, my committee chair, the chief executive, the chief financial officer and the head of quality, asking each where they think the board's information is thinnest.
For the rest of the year I would contribute through questions rather than proposals. If the committee found it useful, I would suggest one live test of a control, such as a timed trace of a single lot, instead of a status report. At the year's end I would ask the chair whether my aerospace habits had helped or had made me misread a different business, and adjust accordingly.
Conflicts and their management
Tessandier remains my principal obligation. Our chief executive would have to consent to any appointment, and our general counsel would review it first. Three categories of company are closed to me: Tessandier's aerospace and defence customers, suppliers and competitors; firms that sell our plants metal, machine tools or plant software; and any business whose commercial dealings with us are material to either side. On appointment I would declare my Tessandier shares, my seat at Atelier-école Rive-Sud, to which Tessandier pays training fees, and any software or analytics vendor that works for both companies.
A particular difficulty in my case is information. Much of what I know about drawings, processes and customer programmes is export-controlled or confidential, and it would stay outside another boardroom even when it seemed relevant to a discussion. When a conflict appeared I would tell the chair before the meeting, take no part in the item and check that the minutes recorded my absence. A seat that required repeated absences would be better held by someone else, and I would resign it. The twenty-two days a year would be agreed in writing with Tessandier beforehand, covering preparation, plant visits and a reserve for a difficult quarter.
My independence statement
I am a serving executive of a listed aerospace manufacturer. Before any appointment I would disclose my employment, my Tessandier shareholding, my not-for-profit directorship and any commercial relationship between Tessandier and the company, its customers or its suppliers. I would expect the board to assess my independence under the Canadian securities rules and stock exchange requirements that apply to it, and I would not describe myself as independent before that assessment is made.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
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| Ready to chair | Programme or operations committee of a not-for-profit board · A technology, data or innovation committee of a listed or private manufacturer, after one full annual cycle as a member |
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| Ready to join | Audit and risk committee, as a member with operational-risk and data expertise rather than as the financial expert · Risk committee · Technology, data or cyber oversight committee |
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Board and committee exposure
Served as a director
Atelier-école Rive-Sud
Board of directors; finance and audit committee member; programme committee chair from 2023
June 2020–present
Director of a not-for-profit machinist training school on Montreal's South Shore; chairs the committee that oversees programmes, placements and employer partnerships.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Tessandier Aerospace Inc.
Audit and risk committee
2022–present
Presents twice a year on traceability drill results, data quality at source, the AI register and data risks, including the gaps the records do not yet cover.
Reported to a committee
Tessandier Aerospace Inc.
Audit and risk committee
2022–present
Annual report, as the delegated person in charge of protecting personal information, on privacy impact assessments, confidentiality incidents and employee-data uses.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Tessandier Aerospace Inc.
Full board
2023 and 2024
Presented the C$14.2m serial genealogy investment case and, in 2024, the revised spindle-maintenance programme and why the original case had overstated the saving.
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 22 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Medical device and diagnostics manufacturing · Food processing with traceability obligations · Rail and transit equipment · Specialty chemicals and materials
- Company type
- A Canadian listed or privately held manufacturer, or a large not-for-profit, with an established audit or risk committee and products whose customers or regulators require proof about individual lots or units
- Company stage
- A company integrating acquired plants, introducing AI near product quality or responding to a customer or regulatory finding about its records
The seat I am pursuing
I am looking for one non-executive seat on the board of a Canadian manufacturer or regulated-product company outside the aerospace supply chain, ideally where customers or regulators require proof about individual lots or units and where the company is introducing AI near product quality or integrating acquired plants. Medical devices, food processing, rail equipment and specialty materials are the settings where my experience would transfer most directly. I would like to serve on an audit and risk or technology committee and, after a full cycle, to chair a technology or data committee if the board wished. I am not interested in a seat chosen for a data title, and I would not join a board that wanted a technologist's name without a committee role. Before taking a conversation further I would want to understand the chair's view of what the board lacks, how the board currently receives information about product records and data risk, and the company's most recent audit findings.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is an Indian register for independent directors of Indian companies, and it does not apply to the Canadian appointments I am considering. I have not registered and have no plan to seek a directorship in India. For a Canadian company, the board would assess my independence under the securities rules and exchange requirements that govern it.
- A university-based director education programme for prospective directors, completed in 2024
- Annual briefings for the audit and risk committee from Tessandier's external auditors and legal counsel, attended as a presenter
- Not-for-profit board service since 2020, including programme committee chair from 2023
- Privacy and AI governance training for the delegated role of person in charge of protecting personal information, 2022 and 2025