Advisory Director — Capital and Performance (Mining and Metals)

The judgements a family board will bring to its adviser

Family-owned boards often hold a longer view than listed ones, which is a strength until it becomes a reason not to look closely at this year's cash. The Advisory Director is appointed to help the Board of Directors, to which the role reports, build cash and performance discipline over 24 months. The role is counsel: the board decides, and the adviser's work is to make sure it decides on evidence. Several judgement calls will come back again and again.

The first is what the board looks at. The adviser will help it agree the evidence it uses to oversee capital, cash and controls, so that each review rests on the same measures rather than on whichever figure looks best that quarter. The second is which commitments to keep. The adviser recommends which should go on, which should wait and which should end, including those that carry family history. The third is accountability: the adviser challenges any plan that would move cost or risk onto a person who does not answer for it, along with value cases that omit adoption, dependencies or the downside. Beyond these, the adviser helps the board settle which decisions sit with local leaders, gives a view on how leadership is arranged and how problems rise, helps directors and site managers find common ground when they disagree, and helps the board decide how often it reviews progress, exceptions and open questions.

Two years of building discipline

Cash and performance measures for each operation, and how often the board will review them, should be agreed before the first ninety days are out. Around month nine, performance reviews should have been tested against those measures, with the board actively challenging commitments that lack an owner. By month 24, the board should be overseeing cash and performance through a settled review rhythm, with capital decisions tied to evidence as a matter of course.

Counsel grounded in value creation

You have led through value creation without letting the board narrative drift away from operating evidence, in businesses with revenue of $545 million or more, 1,000 or more people and a presence in three or more countries. Platform pivot and succession complete the experiences we will explore; succession matters in a family business in ways that reach beyond executive roles. We will test capital allocation at level 4, and risk judgement, FP&A forecasting, and controls and reporting each at level 3. Boards have pushed hard on your baselines, as have the leaders nearest to resource, processing and logistics work, and the numbers stood. You protect useful controls, show the cost of each exception and leave a stronger bench behind you.

Steps toward the boardroom

Your first conversation is private, by video, with the Board of Directors, in the first week. The Regional President brings the operating side of cash discipline into view at a session in week three. In week five, executives responsible for each function meet you in person as a panel, and in the seventh week you meet the whole board. Each stage is answered in writing within five working days.