Maybe they don’t have my contact details?

Although I’m fairly easy to find on LinkedIn or twitter or just via Google. I guess the search committee doesn’t use these tools. Or perhaps I don’t fit the profile? Now to be absolutely frank I’m not sure I’d want the job, but part of me says that if called, I should serve. And that it is easy to complain about how the old order is failing utterly to even recognize – let alone take advantage of – the huge tectonic shifts currently shaking the economic and social order, but that it is harder to ‘do something about it.’

In creating Nauiokas Park, one of the motivations was to turn our vision and understanding into actionable change (by funding and advising entrepreneurs and companies who are adapted to the new order and so I would consider this as trying to ‘do something about it’. Perhaps this is doing enough, but (if offered the opportunity) maybe a barbell approach would be even better.

So what am I talking about? Well RBS is looking for a couple more new non-executives. And looking at the team in place, I think I’d bring a nice combination of banking experience and skills (without the constraints of being an establishment figure), and understanding of the importance and power of technology in shaping the financial landscape of the future. Most of all I would bring a diversifying voice to the table. Sure I would be by far the youngest Board member (average age of current team c. 58, only Stephen Hester is under 50) but I think having (at least) one Board member who has a credible claim on being a digital native (or at least a well-assimilated immigrant) is actually a very powerful point in my favor.

Head hunters, Boards, nomination committees, task forces, the government etc. all talk ad nausea about the need to broaden and diversify the pool of non-executive talent in the FTSE100 boardrooms, but then go fishing using the same bait in the same pond. I am more than happy to acknowledge that there are many other equally or better qualified potential candidates (and for example, RBS might do well to add at least one, or better yet two or more women to their Board…perhaps they should talk to Amy…) but I hope for their sake and the sake of the UK economy – like it or not RBS is bloody important – that they don’t pick yet another couple 50 or 60 something white male FTSE100 insiders…

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