Critical-Role Succession Board Adviser

The mandate

A water utility’s succession dashboard shows named successors for most leadership positions, yet incident reviews reveal that treatment chemistry, network isolation and emergency coordination depend on a small group approaching retirement. Nominees have attended courses but have not led rare events, and contractor knowledge is not represented. The board needs assurance that critical capability, not hierarchy, drives succession investment.

The adviser will help directors define consequence-based roles, readiness evidence, knowledge transfer and fallback coverage without certifying engineers or appointing employees. Advice must distinguish named replacement, supervised competence, independent decision ability and resilience across shifts. The board also needs to see where succession depends on capital, contractor access or deliberate exposure rather than another development plan.

Three days monthly include evidence review, chair counsel and observation of a capability or exercise session, with six people-and-resilience meetings over ten months. Written challenges follow within three working days. An urgent retirement or readiness exception will receive response within two days when management provides the role consequence, coverage and proposed mitigation.

The adviser has no line or executive authority, cannot select successors, certify technical competence, direct incidents, approve staffing, negotiate retirement or commit investment. Executives, engineering authorities and directors retain those responsibilities. The adviser may press for observed exercise evidence and disclose unsupported readiness before the board approves risk acceptance.

The ten-month term concludes after two succession calibrations and a major emergency exercise. One three-month renewal may be authorised if the exercise is deferred, following a fresh conflict declaration. Relationships with utility contractors, engineering firms, regulators, unions, candidates, training providers or competing boards are conflicts requiring disclosure and chair-directed recusal or restricted information.

Why the board wants this voice

Conventional succession lists favour management hierarchy and course completion, while utility resilience depends on rare technical decisions across shifts and contractors. Executives may understate gaps that require costly duplication or exposure. Independent critical-capability experience helps directors distinguish genuine readiness from nomination without taking engineering or appointment authority.

What you will own

• Press the board to identify roles by service consequence, scarce judgment and recovery dependency rather than organisational level.
• Test successor readiness through observed decisions, supervised practice, exercises, event history and independent technical evidence.
• Challenge single-person, single-shift, contractor and retirement concentration across treatment, network and emergency capabilities.
• Examine knowledge artefacts, tacit practice, access, mentoring capacity and planned exposure for realistic transfer.
• Shape build, recruit, retain, contract, duplicate and accept-risk choices with time, cost and resilience consequences.
• Probe emergency coverage when a named successor, contractor or specialist is unavailable during concurrent events.
• Maintain board evidence on readiness movement, unresolved gaps, accountable actions and investment decision dates.

Candidate qualifications

• Advised utility or infrastructure boards on technical succession tied directly to essential service and emergency consequence.
• Distinguished nomination, shadowing and course completion from observed independent decision competence across critical operational roles.
• Identified tacit knowledge, contractor dependence, shift concentration and retirement timing that dashboards concealed.
• Designed supervised exposure, scenario exercise and decision evidence with engineering authorities without claiming technical certification.
• Challenged expensive duplication and optimistic risk acceptance using transparent resilience scenarios.
• Maintained thoroughly documented independence from candidates, contractors, engineering firms, training providers, unions and sector regulators.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend six Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or Sydney evidence sessions during the ten-month term.
• Will disclose utility, contractor, engineer, regulator, union, candidate and training-provider relationships.
• Brings consequence-based technical succession in essential infrastructure; generic talent review experience is insufficient.
• Accepts no authority over appointment, competence certification, incident direction, staffing or investment approval.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a critical role whose named successor lacked evidence for the rare decision that mattered.
2. 49 words maximum. Which contractor, candidate or engineering relationship could affect your independence?
3. 49 words maximum. What exercise would expose single-person dependency in a utility control environment?