My remit grew from examining a proposal to explaining the bank’s combined commitments.

Mandate

Make institutional choices explicit across opportunities, accountable management capacity and continuing customer responsibilities.

Outcomes

• Recommended sequencing three of nine strategic initiatives later in 2021, retaining C$1.6 million in replanning expense.
• Supported two regional teams before two deferred teams in 2023, with C$2.8 million additional assessment and staged mobilisation expense.
• Kept 4500 existing accounts and C$3.2 million planned support expense visible in the 2025 segment decision.

Decisions in context

The CSO appointment brought me into the discussion of the bank's combined commitments. I had to examine how separately attractive proposals affected the same institution, rather than produce a persuasive account of each opportunity in isolation. The portfolio sequence, regional expansion and segment review involved different choices, but each required an explicit account of what the bank would defer or continue to carry. My team provides analysis and coordination through five direct reports. Its expense delegation funds the strategy function; it is not authority to lend, allocate all bank capital or change customer arrangements. I have presented the executive reasoning to the board since this appointment began, without serving as a statutory director. A search discussion should retain the bank's balance-sheet scale as company context and assess my contribution through the recommendations and their consequences, including the expense that remained after an attractive headline had changed.

Reason for the move

Promoted from strategy director; current executive appointment.

Mandate

Develop a comparative account of strategic alternatives and the evidence supporting their claimed institutional benefit.

Outcomes

• Challenged the new-reach argument when 112 of 180 proposed acquisition relationships matched existing bank customers.
• Kept the unmatched sixty-eight relationships separate from any assumed conversion or valuation.
• Retained C$740, 000 in diligence expense after the proposed 2015 transaction did not proceed.

Decisions in context

As strategy director I worked more closely with proposals whose attractiveness depended on several arguments being combined. The acquisition assessment showed why those arguments had to remain separable. A relationship already within the bank could still support a deeper proposition, but it could not simultaneously be counted as wholly new reach without explanation. I asked for that distinction to be carried into the recommendation and accepted that the conclusion might leave diligence expense without a completed transaction. Other professionals retained responsibility for value, legal matters and risk. My role was to make the strategic interpretation defensible within those boundaries. Director was an employment designation rather than evidence of a statutory seat. This appointment prepared me for the CSO role by requiring me to explain why the institution might give up an apparently attractive option, and to preserve the cost of the assessment instead of treating a decision not to proceed as an absence of work.

Reason for the move

Promoted to CSO with responsibility for the institution-wide strategy function.

Mandate

Connect business propositions with an explicit account of assumptions, evidence and organisational requirements.

Outcomes

• Owned the overinterpretation of 240 expressions of interest in a 2008 service proposition.
• Separated forty-six respondents ready for an assessment, seventy-four unable to allocate effort and 120 without further commitment.
• Withdrew the unsupported growth assumption and retained C$520, 000 research and proposition rework expense.

Decisions in context

Moving into the bank made me answerable for what happened after a recommendation was accepted. I could no longer treat the client discussion as the end of the assignment. The customer-interest mistake became a formative part of that transition. I allowed an exploratory response to support a stronger growth inference than the evidence justified, then had to help correct the proposition and explain the expense. The revised account did not discard research; it restored the difference between curiosity, willingness to examine a service and actual adoption. I led a modest planning function within a much larger bank, with its own expense remit and no authority to approve customer lending. The role developed my ability to stay with a strategic question after the attractive initial presentation had become less certain. It also supplied a specific example of my own reasoning changing, which remains more useful than a general claim to analytical discipline.

Reason for the move

Promoted to strategy director after seven years in institutional business planning.

Mandate

Lead advisory work that made the evidence, alternatives and implementation implications of a recommendation usable for the client.

Outcomes

• Connected comparative opportunity assessments with the management attention required to act on them.
• Distinguished the advisory firm’s delivery expense from the client’s investment and operating commitments.
• Developed an interest in remaining responsible for a proposition beyond its initial recommendation.

Decisions in context

Managing engagements required me to move from contributing analysis to organising a recommendation that another leadership team could examine. I led colleagues with different pieces of the evidence and had to show how their conclusions fitted together. The task was not complete when the presentation was internally consistent. It also had to identify who in the client organisation would need to act and which assumptions remained open. My expense authority covered our delivery, not the resources a client might commit after considering the work. That boundary was useful preparation for banking strategy, where coordination across professional functions can easily be mistaken for authority over them. I chose to move into Westravell because I wanted to experience the continuing responsibility after a strategic decision, including the less attractive work of revisiting an assumption when an institution had already organised itself around it.

Reason for the move

Joined Westravell to work within an institution and follow strategic choices through their consequences.

Mandate

Examine evidence and assumptions within proposed business choices under the direction of the engagement team.

Outcomes

• Learned to distinguish an observed customer response from the commercial conclusion proposed around it.
• Prepared comparisons that identified assumptions requiring further examination.
• Developed an interest in the organisational consequences beyond an opportunity’s headline size.

Decisions in context

I began the analyst appointment after completing economics in June 1990. Working within a six-person team, I helped examine the evidence used to support business proposals. I did not lead the firm's workforce or control the client's decisions. The early responsibility was to make a contribution that another colleague could inspect and use without having to guess which assumption had produced it. I became interested in situations where the same observation supported several possible interpretations. A customer response could demonstrate relevance without establishing demand, while a large opportunity could remain difficult to pursue with the organisation available. These were analytical questions before they became leadership responsibilities. The experience gave me a vocabulary for examining a proposition, but it did not prevent my later mistake in the bank's 2008 assessment. That distinction keeps the early career credible: learning a principle and applying it consistently are different achievements.

Reason for the move

Promoted to engagement management after developing analytical and client-discussion responsibilities.