What we solve ·How do I fix the way we decide?
Vanguard · Guide
Who challenges the technical investments in your committee?
In the committee nobody contradicts the person presenting, and the people who know work for him.
An independent technical voice on your risk or technology committee, four times a year, with a written opinion.
Independent committee advisorSend this page to whoever decides
This sounds like you if
- The committee approves technical investments and the people who could challenge them work for whoever is presenting.
- The only member with technology judgment has left.
- An audit finding asked for technical capability on the governing body.
Use this today, without hiring anyone
The six technology questions missing from your committee's agenda. Put them on the next session: the answers, or the absence of them, are worth more than any presentation.
- What does a machine decide in this organization, and who answers for each of those decisions?
- Which vendor could we not replace in six months even if we wanted to?
- Which critical function has never been tested in a real rehearsal?
- What was automated this year without this committee approving it?
- How long would it take us to reconstruct one specific decision for a third party?
- What happens if our vendor changes version without telling us?
If three of the six go unanswered in the room, you already know what the committee is missing: it is the inventory that sits behind none of the six questions. The advisor is there to demand that inventory and to read it when it arrives.
How we solve it
The method, not the promise.
- The committee material gets read five days ahead and there is a conversation with technology or operations beforehand.
- A written opinion gets issued on the technical items on the agenda, before the session and not after.
- In the session, the technical questions the material does not answer get asked.
- Between sessions, two specific queries per quarter get handled.
- Once a year the note on frontier topics applicable to the organization gets delivered.
What you receive
- One written opinion per session on the technical items on the agenda.
- Participation in four committees a year, with prior reading.
- Two specific queries per quarter between sessions.
- The annual declaration of independence and the annual frontier note.
The proof that applies here
- Eight years without a single audit finding with regulators, from the side that answers.
- Resilience leadership in a financial institution regulated in two countries.
- The systems separation in one of the largest bank divestitures in Latin America, with zero regulatory findings.
Before you hire
It is not a fiduciary responsibility and not a statutory role: the written opinion informs the committee's decision, it does not replace it and does not guarantee it.
Independence here is the entry requirement: an independent seat requires that whoever fills it sells no licenses and takes no commission. The firm does not resell technology, takes no commission from any vendor and enters no alliances that would bias advice. It is written in the annual declaration of independence you receive.
Of the six questions above, how many could your committee answer today?
If the problem is a different one
The decisions that weigh most, I make without an independent peer in the room.
Operations counsel
The integrator says it works and I am the one who signs.
Independent implementation review
They no longer ask whether we have controls. They ask whether I can prove it holds.
Operational resilience readiness