My contribution to a board
I would bring a board a practitioner's understanding of three risks that infrastructure boards now carry, often without much technical depth in the room: the security and concentration of technology suppliers, the energy cost and exposure of assets that run around the clock, and operational resilience that has been tested rather than assumed. I have handled each at executive level in a regulated network business. I have replaced a supplier across almost half of a network under board scrutiny, more than halved a network's electricity per unit of traffic and rebuilt how a committee is told about resilience after an outage that should not have happened.
I would also bring experience from four positions in the industry: a mobile operator, an equipment maker in Italy and Greece, an integrated operator in Portugal and a tower company that hosted its tenants' competing equipment. That range matters to a board because it shows me how suppliers, landlords and partners read a contract, which is often not how management presents it. I know where a technology business case tends to hide its costs: in exit terms, in energy and in the people needed to run what has been bought.
I am not a financial expert for audit committee purposes and would not present myself as one. On a control and risk committee I would be most useful on technology, security, continuity and energy items, and I would rely on colleagues for accounting judgement. Chairing should wait until I have sat through a full year of the committee's work.
Judgement in practice
01Stepping out of the scoring when my former employer bid
When Corvalta tendered the radio replacement in 2022, Halvorsk Networks, where I worked from 2003 to 2012, was among the bidders. I hold no shares or pension rights with Halvorsk, but I have friends in its Italian business. Before the tender opened I declared the connection to our chief executive and to the chair of the audit and risk committee, and proposed that my deputy lead the technical evaluation and procurement the commercial scoring, with me seeing only the final recommendation. Halvorsk won half the work. Two years later a losing bidder questioned the award informally, and the written declaration settled the question in one meeting. On a board I would expect the same discipline from myself and from executives: declared early, in writing and before anyone has a reason to ask.
02Recommending against the third core site a committee wanted
After the July 2024 outage, two directors on Corvalta's audit and risk committee asked for a third core site costing about €48 million. Agreeing would have been easy, because the request came from the committee and was framed as prudence. I recommended against it for the time being. The outage had been caused by configuration drift between two sites, and a third site would have added another place for drift without removing the cause. I proposed quarterly live failover tests instead and told the committee that one of them would probably cause a short outage; one did, for 19 minutes. The committee deferred the third site to the 2027 budget with the test results in hand. I learnt that a committee will accept an uncomfortable proposal when its risks are named before they occur.
03Declining a supplier's funding for a single-supplier course
In 2023 an equipment supplier offered Fondazione Calvenna three years of funding for a new 5G course, on condition that the practical work used its equipment and led to its certification. The money would have paid for two instructors. I argued on the board that the foundation's value to employers, my own included, lay in technicians who could work on any supplier's equipment, and that a single-supplier course would quietly narrow that. The board agreed to accept the funding only if the course used equipment from at least two makers. The supplier withdrew, and we funded a smaller course from regional grants a year later. As a director I try to ask what an offer will change in an organisation in five years, not only what it pays for this year.
My first year on a board
I would treat my first year as an apprenticeship to the company, organised around three things I would want to understand before offering a firm view.
The first is the business as its operators see it. I would ask to spend a day in the control room or operations centre, a day with a field team and a morning with the people who speak to customers during an incident. I would read the last three years' incident reports beside the board minutes for the same period, to see what the board was told, and how soon.
The second is the risk register as the committee actually uses it. I would meet the chief risk officer, the head of internal audit and, where the company has one, the chair of the board of statutory auditors, and ask each which risk they believe the board underrates and why.
The third is what the company depends on but does not control: its principal technology suppliers and their exit terms, the energy contracts that keep its assets running and the weather assumptions in its design standards. I would not propose changes in the first two quarters unless I found a resilience or security gap that could not wait. At the end of the year I would ask the chair whether my questions had sharpened the board's discussion or merely lengthened it, and adjust accordingly.
Conflicts and their management
My employment at Corvalta Mobile defines most of my conflicts, and I would map them before accepting any appointment. I would not join the board of a mobile, fixed or wholesale network operator in Italy, or of any company that supplies Corvalta, hosts its equipment or shares its network. That excludes tower and rooftop companies, including Torrevia Towers, my former employer; telecom equipment and software makers, including Halvorsk Networks; Sestriva Telecom, our sharing partner; and Solenna Rinnovabili, which sells us solar power under a ten-year contract. An electricity distributor or renewable generator would be possible only if it had no significant supply, connection or hosting relationship with Corvalta, and I would ask the company to check its own records rather than rely on mine.
Before appointment I would disclose these relationships in writing, together with my directorship at Fondazione Calvenna, which receives a small annual grant from Corvalta. If a matter touching Corvalta reached the board, I would declare it, leave the meeting and ask that the minutes record both. I would treat what I know about Corvalta's suppliers, prices and network weaknesses as confidential, even where it would help the other board. Corvalta's chief executive and board would have to consent to the appointment, and if my executive duties ever left me unable to give the agreed time, I would tell the chair and step down rather than attend unprepared.
My independence statement
I am a full-time executive of Corvalta Mobile and intend to remain one. Before any appointment I would set out in writing my employment, my shareholdings, my former employers and every commercial link between Corvalta and the company concerned. Whether I qualify as independent is for that board to decide under the governance code and law that apply to it, and I would not describe myself as independent until it had done so.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to chair | A technology, security or operational-resilience committee, after a full year as a member |
|---|
| Ready to join | Control and risk committee · Sustainability committee where energy is a material item · Technology or cyber-risk committee |
|---|
Board and committee exposure
Served as a director
Fondazione Calvenna
Board of directors; chair of the curriculum committee from 2024
March 2022–present
Director of a foundation in Emilia-Romagna that trains network and field technicians; chairs the committee that approves course content and equipment partners.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Corvalta Mobile
Board of directors
2021–present
Presented the supplier-replacement plan in 2021, the annual technology plan each year and the review of the July 2024 voice outage.
Reported to a committee
Corvalta Mobile
Audit and risk committee
2022–present
Quarterly report on network security, supplier risk and resilience tests, including each live failover result.
Reported to a committee
Torrevia Towers
Board sustainability committee
2018–2020
Annual report on the diesel-replacement and energy programme and on battery autonomy standards.
Presented to the Board or a committee
Aldera Comunicações
Board of directors
2014
Presented the technical case and exit terms of the radio-sharing agreement with Marévia Móvel.
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 25 days per year
- Current directorships
- 1
- Sectors
- Electricity distribution and water utilities · Motorway, rail, port and airport operators · Renewable generators with no supply relationship with Corvalta
- Company type
- Listed or regulated infrastructure company in Italy or elsewhere in southern Europe, with an established control and risk committee
- Company stage
- A company whose assets must run continuously and whose dependence on technology suppliers, energy and weather has grown faster than its board's technical experience
The seat I am pursuing
I am seeking one non-executive seat outside telecommunications, on the board of a listed or regulated infrastructure company in Italy or elsewhere in southern Europe: an electricity distribution or water utility, a motorway or rail operator, or a port or airport group. These businesses share the problems I know. Their assets must run continuously, they depend on a few technology suppliers, their energy exposure is rising, the weather is changing their design conditions and their regulators expect resilience to be demonstrated. I would like to join a control and risk committee, or a sustainability committee where energy is a material item, and in time to chair a committee on technology or operational resilience if the board has one. I am not seeking a seat in which I would represent a technology supplier's view, and I would decline a board that wanted a telecom executive mainly for her contacts. I can give 25 days a year, agreed in advance with Corvalta.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank serves appointments to Indian companies; it has no bearing on the European boards I am considering, so I have not registered. For an Italian listed company, the board assesses each director's independence under the Corporate Governance Code and the applicable law.
- A two-day induction course for prospective non-executive directors of listed companies, 2024
- Board service at Fondazione Calvenna since 2022, chairing its curriculum committee from 2024
- Briefings from Corvalta's internal audit team and external auditors when attending the audit and risk committee for technology items
- A course for board members on climate risk and sustainability reporting, 2025