Keeping the product promise connected to the responsibility behind it

I approach residential governance from two stated positions. Since July 2020 I have presented product priorities to Mervellen Places’ board as its CPO. Since July 2022 I have also served as an executive nominee director of wholly owned Rovellen Resident Services. The second is one current statutory group-company appointment, held alongside employment. It is not an independent outside seat. I want that distinction visible because a profile can otherwise allow the word director to imply a relationship quite different from the one the person actually holds.

The product questions I bring concern what the residential proposition asks people to rely on. A sixty-square-metre shared workroom may contain incompatible expectations about calls and quiet. A 600 mm external wardrobe dimension may conceal a 550 mm clear passage. A booking application may appear to complete a service design while some residents cannot use the route and the operating team has no agreed alternative. These examples are specific, but the wider governance question is whether the attractive account of a feature includes the conditions required for it to be useful.

Management should be able to explain the choice and its cost. In the 2018 amenity decision, four guest suites and two equivalent storage rooms replaced a proposal for six suites. The product became less impressive if assessed only through the guest-suite count. It became more responsive to two different uses considered in the review. A board paper should retain the displaced alternative and the limits of the research, rather than present the selected mix as an improvement that preserved every earlier benefit. The household accounts did not establish actual bookings, rental performance or universal preference.

My nominee appointment makes me attentive to the service responsibility following a product choice. Adding a telephone booking route requires a team that can receive and confirm the request under the actual arrangements for the space. The product team cannot regard a published number as the end of its work while the subsidiary inherits an unstructured obligation. The board-level question is whether the service account, resources and responsibility fit the proposition. It is not an invitation for directors to manage each request or to turn the board agenda into a detailed interface review.

I also retain the decision I personally got wrong. The wardrobe case began with my approval of the external dimension. Fiona Marvellan’s challenge made us change the brief rather than merely improve the drawing’s explanation. We allocated another 50 mm to the redesigned module and kept three larger-item exceptions in the later prototype account. That is relevant to governance because the useful challenge reached the sponsor whose authority had helped the original assumption become settled. An institution should be able to examine such assumptions without needing to pretend that senior approval makes them beyond question.

The boundaries of my executive authority remain equally important. I lead 78 colleagues through five direct reports with A$23 million in FY 2026–27 function expense. The group’s A$3.2 billion 2025 owned residential assets and 6400 homes describe company scale, not a personal investment mandate. Architects, planners, engineers, safety specialists, operating leaders and tenancy advisers retain the responsibilities relevant to their work. A product choice does not provide a building approval or a general accessibility finding. Directors should understand where management has obtained the necessary specialist assessment and where the account is still at development or prototype stage.

A prospective outside role would require a separate examination of experience, preparation and relationships. My current group appointment would be disclosed, and I would not claim independence from its existence. Twenty additional annual days are only an initial capacity indication after existing responsibilities are considered; induction and exceptional matters need room. The fictional narrative supplies a concrete account of the questions I would bring, with restricted resident and property information excluded. I would want collective judgement to benefit from practical product scrutiny while preserving the distinction among executive sponsorship, a nominee board role and a possible future appointment in another institution.