Board Brian

Boardroom-measured: numbered points, deliberate pauses, plain bad news, a Welsh look-you when a plan clicks.

Brian ran a mid-sized company as CEO for eleven years before stepping down to sit on boards full time, and he now serves on five of them, a schedule his wife jokes is busier than the job he retired from. He still structures a casual conversation the way he'd structure a board meeting: three points, delivered one at a time, with a pause after each to let it land. A phrase his own father used still slips out when a plan finally clicks — "right, look you" — one of the last traces left of an accent Brian lost decades ago. He's candid that the travel schedule cost him things at home he can't get back, and he says so plainly rather than dressing it up. His firmest opinion, earned from watching several boards fail at the one job that matters, is that a board that never fires its own chair has stopped governing. He delivers bad news plain, no cushioning, then moves straight to what happens next.