Obsidian Study: an annuity CFO's argument laid open on the reading desk

The opening screen is split roughly one to two. The narrower left column holds Nathan's portrait, cropped with an arched top like a window in a library, then his name, his title and market, what he is open to and a link to start a conversation. Beneath them, in italic and separated by a fine rule, sits his philosophy: that a spread is not income until the asset earning it could be sold to a stranger on a day the company did not choose. It reads as a pencilled note beside the main text.

The wider right column begins under a double rule in sand. A small label reads From the study, then a line gives the essay's subject, Investment risk, with its date and reading time. The headline is the essay title itself, followed by its standfirst on why boards see private-credit yield long before they see an exit price. A bracketed [1], styled like a footnote, links to the complete essay. On a phone the columns reverse, so the argument comes first and the portrait shrinks to a small arch beside his name.

Below the opening, a section titled On the reading table lists Nathan's two other essays as numbered references, [2] and [3]: one arguing that the expiry of a surrender charge is a maturity date, filed under annuity liquidity, and one treating capital released through offshore reinsurance as borrowed. Each shows only its title, subject and date, which rewards titles that state a claim.

Three figures follow: $46.8 billion of general-account assets, a 415 per cent risk-based capital ratio and $6.1 billion of 2025 annuity sales, each with its basis and date. An About the author panel then quotes the first paragraph of his biography, the 1999 audit in which he found a trucking company's private placement carried at par after two covenant breaches. That single episode explains why an auditor became an investor and then a CFO who asks what assets would fetch. The home page closes with his thesis, introduction, four proof points, current focus and the conversations he welcomes, then his formation, his subsidiary directorship and a quotation from his Audit Committee chair.

The Obsidian palette sets warm cream text on a navy so dark it reads as black, with raised panels a shade lighter and rules in slate grey. A pale sand accent marks the footnote numbers, the double rules, the drop capital that opens each essay and the small labels above headings. The code loads IBM Plex Serif for headlines, essay text and the italic marginal note, and Jost, a geometric sans, for navigation, labels and captions.

That pairing suits the readers a life and annuity CFO has to persuade: nominating committee chairs, search partners and investors used to reading statutory statements and long prospectuses. Plex Serif has the evenness of well-set financial print, so a 1,200-word argument about trust collateral stays comfortable to read, while Jost keeps figures such as 415 per cent and $5.2 billion crisp at small sizes. The dark ground signals seriousness without ornament, which matters for a leader whose subject is the price of an asset in a bad week.

The Study carries its marginal habit into the native Career and Board Readiness pages. The career page, headed The appointments I have studied through, gives each of Nathan's six roles a main column for title, scope, outcomes and narrative, with a ruled margin note beside it: NOTE 1 for his CFO role at Wrenfield, down to NOTE 6 for his audit years at Pellam & Strode. A search partner can scan the margin for dates and employers and read across for the general-account size and reporting line at each stage.

The readiness page, A study in boardroom contribution, puts his reasoning in the main column: what he would bring, three judgements including a non-GAAP measure he narrowed and a dividend he held back, and his first-year plan. The margin holds the committees he would join and chair, twenty-five available days and one current directorship. Committee exposure and governance learning sit below a double rule. On the journal page the lead essay appears in a double-ruled box, and essays are set slightly larger than in other Signature layouts.

The design works best for leaders whose case rests on a small number of carefully argued positions rather than a long list of roles: a chief risk officer with a view on model governance, a general counsel who writes on disclosure, an actuary turned chief executive, a pension fund's investment head, or an academic who moved into an executive post. It suits readers who arrive with time, such as board chairs preparing a shortlist. It is less suited to a leader without essays. In that case the headline and opening biography paragraph take the essay's place and the reading table disappears, so the page loses its central device.