Bison Bank, established in 2000 and based in Portugal, has a business network spanning across China, Hong Kong, Europe, and Africa. The bank provides a solid and seamless connection between financial markets worldwide, covering a wide range of activities in the financial services industry including private banking, investment banking, institutional sales, and asset management.
Afonso Cardoso de Menezes, Company Secretary of Bison Bank discusses the ways Convene has helped the bank move from a more traditional approach on board meetings, to the digital sphere.
Traditional Meeting Process Before Convene
Alfonso first elaborated on the board meeting processes that the boardroom of Bison Bank would usually go through. “Here at Bison bank, as is often the case with banks, there was a strong traditional ethos. This fed into our meetings processes, which relied upon high volumes of documents. As the company secretary, I would have access to all documents, then meeting items would be discussed, and minutes would be prepared in the usual way after board meetings. When action items were agreed, our directors would be required to enter information into pro forma sections in documents that would then need to be signed-off and circulated to the relevant individuals.”
Streamlined Governance and Board Collaboration
Bison Bank underwent a large-scale transition from its position as a country-specific bank to one with a strong international focus. With Convene, information is now accessible to Board members internationally in an instant. For example, the Chinese and Dutch boardroom members who are often not present in Portugal and were averse to the paper-based system, now have instant access to all of their relevant documents.
“In essence, Convene facilitates and encourages vital international collaboration which is critical for success,” Afonso mentioned.
Meeting items are now discussed in advance, decisions are assessed prior to meetings, and company secretaries now have the ability to disclose relevant information prior to sending it to the relevant parties. Before Convene, the traditional board meeting process generated high volumes of internal documents and paper which slowed down the overall process and had a broader negative environmental impact.
Straightforward Procurement
When recounting the procurement process, Afonso discussed that, “Convene was the initial solution we looked at, and it seemed to offer the complete range of benefits we were looking for. Others were considered, but Convene was at the top of the list. Cost is always a consideration, however, we felt that Convene understood Bison Bank’s background and ways of working.”
The decision to implement Convene was made jointly between Bison Bank’s IT Department and its company secretaries, with the two separate divisions seeing the added value Convene brought to the table, Antonio Henriques, Bison Bank’s board member responsible for IT became a keen proponent of Convene.
Widely Used in the Organization
Currently, Bison Bank is running 20 Convene licenses across their operations.
Afonso further added that, “Our supervisory board has access, as do all board members. Access is also granted to all heads of departments in the bank. We have a board of seven members who meet monthly, and an executive committee of five members who meet weekly. The meetings result in a large number of action items that are now effectively managed by Convene’s functionality. Aside from our Board and executive committee, it has been even adopted by two further committees.”
Intuitive Usability with Useful Voting Function
Afonso mentioned that, “As a system, we find it very user friendly. In terms of specific functionality, it is useful to be able to drag and move documents. We also find the annotations tool a useful feature. We also like the mobility of the app and the fact that it can be used outside the boardroom, for example when traveling, or on offline devices.”
With Convene, votes are now cast by the board following each agenda item that is discussed during the meeting, as opposed to votes being cast collectively once the meeting has closed. This means that the company secretaries can audit all agenda items individually after meetings have finished, confirming who has casted votes and to find out if any members have been left out.