What I would bring to a board that holds household data
My contribution to a board
A board that holds millions of households' data needs at least one director who can tell a well-governed model from a well-presented one. That is the first thing I would offer. I have built models that did harm while working exactly as specified, and I know the questions that expose that kind of failure: what the model is for, what it must never be used for, how the separation is enforced and who outside the company has checked it. I can ask those questions without needing to read the code, and I can recognise an evasive answer.
The second thing is experience of customers in difficulty, seen from three sides: a bank's collections floor, an energy retailer's hardship programme and the board of a financial counselling service. Water utilities, health insurers and customer-owned banks all owe obligations to people who cannot pay, and their boards increasingly ask whether data is helping or hurting those people. I can help a board see the evidence on that question rather than the assurance.
The third is a working knowledge of statutory reporting that rests on operational data. Our climate statement taught me how much of a reported figure depends on reconciliations that nobody outside finance usually examines. On an audit and risk committee I would bring that habit to any metric the board signs, whether it concerns emissions, service levels or customer outcomes.
I would not claim financial expertise of the kind an audit committee chair needs. I would expect to contribute as a member, and after a year, if the board wished, to lead a committee concerned with technology, data or customers.
Judgement in practice
01
Unbundling consent from a data partnership
In 2022 our marketing team proposed a partnership in which customers joining a new plan would agree, in the same step, to share their interval data with solar installers and home-insurance partners, who would pay Wirrandel for qualified leads. The business case projected A$7 million a year. I recommended against the bundled consent, arguing that agreement given in order to obtain an electricity plan was not meaningful agreement to be marketed to by third parties. The executive team accepted a narrower programme: a separate, specific and time-limited consent, offered after sign-up, for one partner category at a time. Only 2.3 per cent of customers opted in, and the revenue was a fraction of the plan. On a board I would ask the same question of any data partnership: would the customer recognise what they agreed to if we read it back to them a year later?
02
Notifying customers when the law did not clearly require it
In 2023 a misconfigured analytics environment left extracts covering 4,100 customers readable by a contractor's staff for nineteen days. Our assessment found no evidence that the data had been copied, and there was a credible argument that the incident fell short of the likely serious harm that triggers mandatory notification under the notifiable data breaches scheme. I recommended that we notify the regulator and every affected customer anyway, because some of the extracts identified customers on hardship arrangements, and a customer's own judgement of that harm mattered more than ours. The CEO agreed. Several customers thanked us; two closed their accounts. As a director I would want management to bring this kind of finely balanced decision to the board early, with the reasons on both sides written down, rather than reporting the outcome afterwards.
03
Withdrawing a retention model that penalised loyalty
In 2021, soon after I became chief data officer, a review showed that our retention model offered its largest discounts to customers predicted to switch and almost none to long-standing customers, including many on hardship arrangements who were unlikely to leave. The model was profitable and lawful, and our sales director defended it. I recommended withdrawing it and replacing it with a rule that any customer could receive the best offer available to a comparable new customer on request, alongside yearly prompts to review their plan. The change cost about A$6 million a year in margin. I would bring the lesson to any board overseeing pricing models: an accurate model can still produce an outcome the company would be embarrassed to explain to its most loyal customers.
My first year on a board
My first months would go on the organisation's data rather than its strategy papers. I would ask for a map of the customer data it holds and every model that makes or shapes a decision about a customer, with an owner beside each, and I would expect gaps; most organisations have never drawn it. I would read the last three years of risk-committee minutes, internal-audit reports touching privacy and technology, and any regulator's correspondence about customer treatment. I would spend a day with the team that handles customers in difficulty and an afternoon listening to recorded calls, because what a customer hears is the truest test of what a policy means.
Through the rest of the year I would speak less than I listened. I would want to understand which risks the board already sees clearly, so that I did not spend its time on them, and which ones nobody owns. I would ask the chair at the six-month mark whether my questions were adding value or simply adding length, and I would take part in the board's evaluation at year end with the expectation of hearing something uncomfortable.
Conflicts and their management
Three kinds of conflict matter in my case, and I would handle each before accepting any seat. Commercial conflicts come first. I would decline any energy retailer, generator, network or battery manufacturer, any business that competes with or supplies Wirrandel in a material way, and any data or comparison service that receives Wirrandel customers' data under the Consumer Data Right. Before an approach went further I would list my Wirrandel shareholding, my subsidiary directorship and my not-for-profit board, and Wirrandel's board would need to consent.
The second is information. As an executive I hold Wirrandel's confidential plans and customer data, and I would never bring either into another boardroom or take another company's information back. If a discussion touched energy markets or a supplier we share, I would declare the interest and leave the room for that item.
The third is time. My commitment would be twenty-four days a year, including preparation. Wirrandel's reporting dates are fixed a year ahead, and I would agree the other board's calendar against them before accepting. If either role began to crowd the other, I would tell both chairs and resolve it in favour of my executive duty.
My independence statement
I am a full-time executive of Wirrandel Energy and hold its shares under its employee equity plan. I would join another board only where neither Wirrandel nor I have a material business, financial or family connection with that organisation, and I would set out every relevant interest in writing before an approach went further. The ASX Corporate Governance Council's Principles and Recommendations list the relationships that can affect a director's independence; whether I meet that standard for a given company is for its board to assess on what I disclose, not for me to assert.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Wirrandel Energy Limited
Board of directors: data strategy, customer data use and major data investments
March 2021–present
Presents the data strategy twice a year and major data investments as they arise; not a director of the company and holds no vote.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Wirrandel Energy Limited
Audit and Risk Committee: privacy, data controls, model risk and the data behind the climate statement
March 2021–present
Attends for these items at most meetings; presented the emissions ledger design in August 2024 and presents the yearly internal-audit test of the early-support separation.
Reported to a committee
Wirrandel Energy Limited
Sustainability and Safety Committee: emissions data and measures of customer vulnerability
July 2022–present
Reports twice a year on disconnections, hardship outcomes and emissions data quality.
Served as a director
Wirrandel Battery Network Pty Ltd
Board of the wholly owned virtual power plant subsidiary
July 2023–present
Director in an executive capacity, approving the subsidiary's accounts, customer participation terms and market registrations.
Served as a director
Quorrell Street Financial Counselling Ltd
Board of a not-for-profit financial counselling service
February 2022–present
Unpaid non-executive director of an organisation with 46 staff and volunteers and about A$4.2 million of annual funding.
Member of a committee
Quorrell Street Financial Counselling Ltd
Finance, Audit and Risk Committee
March 2023–present
Member; led the committee's review of how client records are held and shared with referral partners.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is an Indian register for directors of Indian companies, so it does not apply to me and I have not registered. Australia has no equivalent statutory register. Boards here assess a candidate's independence against the ASX Corporate Governance Council's Principles and Recommendations, and every director carries the duties set out in the Corporations Act.
A company directors' course from a national directors' membership body, completed in 2023
Board service at Quorrell Street Financial Counselling since 2022, including its Finance, Audit and Risk Committee
Attendance at Wirrandel's Audit and Risk Committee for data, privacy and climate items since 2021
Study of the climate-reporting provisions and the sustainability standard with Wirrandel's company secretary and external auditors in 2024 and 2025