Give the board a choice it can actually make

I once put three individually persuasive programmes into a strategy paper whose combined benefits were wrong. The spreadsheet added cleanly. The problem was that two teams had counted the same operating improvement. As head of strategy, I had asked whether each case was credible without asking whether all three could be true together.

I now lead strategy at Qevzenti General Insurance in Jodhpur. My team coordinates the choices behind investment and growth proposals: the capacity they consume, the assumptions they require and the consequences of doing less. The job calls for a clear recommendation, but also a fair account of the options I am not recommending.

This fictional profile follows thirty-three years from commercial analysis to insurer planning. It includes a corrected benefits paper, a deliberately smaller change portfolio, a conditional acquisition forecast, a limited feasibility exercise and a project we recommended stopping. None is presented as a personal approval of insurance terms or a promise that a model became an achieved result.

Current focus

I am concentrating on the point at which a plausible programme becomes a portfolio commitment. That means making room for scarce expertise, showing the consequences of deferral and treating a stop decision as work with owners and costs. A strategy function should help people disagree precisely, rather than making disagreement disappear inside a blended forecast.

Conversations I welcome

I would consider a first outside board contribution after reviewing employer consent, my equity interest and the proposed responsibilities. Databank registration and proficiency assessment have not begun in this fictional record. Twenty-one potential annual days remain provisional, including preparation and exceptional demands.