The purpose of the appointment
The Board is seeking an independent director who can bring customer consequence into decisions about growth, distribution, people and risk. The seat spans the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, Stakeholders Relationship Committee, Risk Management Committee and CSR agenda. Its value lies in integration: a lending or deposit strategy affects customers; targets affect employee and intermediary conduct; digital design affects exclusion and grievance; and succession choices determine whether the institution can sustain its control obligations while expanding.
The appointee should be able to hear the same management proposal through four lenses. Is it strategically coherent? Is the leadership bench capable of delivering it? Are risks understood and bounded? Will the customer experience remain fair when the model operates at scale, including for customers with limited digital confidence or volatile incomes?
A customer-outcomes charter, not a complaint dashboard
The director will ask management to move beyond totals and turnaround time. Board information should reveal why customers complain, which products and journeys generate repeat harm, whether vulnerable groups experience different outcomes, how many resolutions reverse an earlier decision, and whether root-cause action changes the next cohort. Escalated grievances, ombudsman cases, mis-selling, dormant-account handling, fraud reimbursement and service interruption need clear ownership.
Digital journeys deserve the same scrutiny as branches and agents. Consent should be comprehensible; eligibility and pricing logic should be explainable; failed transactions and erroneous declines should be visible; and customer recourse should remain usable when the automated path fails. The director is expected to test whether convenience metrics conceal abandonment, exclusion or unfair friction.
People and strategy questions reserved for the Board
The NRC element covers chief-executive and control-function succession, leadership assessment, incentive design and organisation health. Variable pay should not reward acquisition while deferring the consequences of attrition, complaints, early delinquency or control exceptions. Risk, compliance and audit leaders must have stature, access and reward arrangements that preserve challenge.
The appointee will examine whether growth plans are supported by branch and digital operating capacity, supervisory depth, data quality, collections discipline and capital. Strategy papers should make trade-offs explicit: which customer segment is being served, what the institution will decline to do, where human judgement remains necessary, and which risk indicators would pause expansion.
Contribution expected within twelve months
- Agree a customer-outcomes scorecard that connects product, channel, conduct, grievance and remediation data.
- Rework senior succession coverage so that emergency continuity and two-to-three-year development are both credible for the CEO and material control functions.
- Introduce risk and customer gates into incentive design, including malus or recovery logic where later outcomes reverse apparent performance.
- Deep-dive one digital journey from marketing promise through consent, decision, servicing, complaint and closure, with corrective actions owned across functions.
- Help the Board test inclusion claims against actual reach, affordability, service quality and customer capability—not only account creation.
Who should apply
Relevant backgrounds include regulated banking leadership, customer and distribution strategy, retail risk, operations, digital banking, public policy, human capital or consumer protection. Applicants must show enterprise accountability and an ability to challenge both commercial and control functions. A board or committee record is preferred, but a first-time independent director with substantial regulated leadership may be considered where governance readiness is evident. DIN, independence clearance and Independent Directors' Databank compliance are mandatory before appointment.
This seat requires six scheduled board/committee cycles, dedicated customer and succession reviews, and availability when a material conduct or service event requires independent oversight.
Application note
Applications should present committee-relevant evidence rather than a general biography: two or three decisions personally governed, the information used, the challenge made, and the resulting change in risk, capital, control, succession or stakeholder outcome. Shortlisted candidates will undergo independence, conflict, capacity, DIN and databank verification before any confidential market approach.