Strategic Advisory
Some decisions benefit from another chair at the table.
Strategic advice for owners, Chairs and Boards when a decision cuts across strategy, governance, ownership and the future.
Why an outside perspective
From the inside, everyone sees the decision from where they sit.
The most important decisions rarely arrive well framed. They come with urgency, partial information and positions already taken. Management sees them through operations, the Board through oversight, and owners through capital and the long term.
An independent perspective does not replace any of those views. It connects them. It helps frame the right question, bring assumptions into the open and separate the urgent from the important before the decision is closed.
- Perspective
Widening the frame before narrowing the choice. Looking at the decision through strategy, governance, ownership and the future at once.
- Challenge
Testing assumptions while they can still be changed. Asking the questions that are hard to ask from the inside.
- Structure
Turning ambiguity into explicit options, criteria and conditions. So the Board knows what it is deciding, and what it is giving up.
- Continuity
Holding the thread between the decision, its owners and its follow-up. Coming back to it when the context changes.
How the relationship works
A format shaped by the decision.
A first conversation
About the decision, or the agenda behind it. Confidential, and with no commitment.
A format that fits
A regular cadence with the Chair or the owners, Board sessions, or a combination of both. Shaped by the decision, not by a package.
Ongoing involvement
Preparing the key conversations, challenge before the decision and follow-up afterwards: owners, milestones and a review of assumptions.
Clear roles
Owners decide. Management executes. The advisor stays close.
- DecideOwners and the Board
Responsibility for the decision is never delegated.
- ExecuteManagement
With clear priorities, owners and resources.
- Stay closeThe advisor
Brings perspective and stays close until the decision becomes action.
When it makes sense
Moments when a decision carries more weight.
- A change of strategic direction, greater focus, diversification or a portfolio review.
- A corporate transaction: private equity coming in, an acquisition, a divestment.
- A transition in the Chair, the CEO role or between generations of owners.
- A Board that needs to move from reporting to strategic conversation.
- Family owners who need a strategy of their own: capital, risk, time horizon and purpose.
- A fund coming in, and the building of the portfolio company’s new governance.
- Shifts in technology, regulation or customers that force a review of the strategy’s assumptions.
What it is not
- It does not replace the Board or management: it supports them. At times it designs the governance architecture.
- It is not implementation consulting: execution belongs to management.
- It is not a fixed package of hours or deliverables.
- It is not a report that ends up in a drawer: the value lies in the decision and its follow-up.
Self-assessment
Does your Board decide or report?
Eight statements about how the Board really works. Answer with the last few meetings in mind, not the Board’s rules.
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Executive Conversations
A conversation designed around a real decision.
To design the conversation is to design the decision. Every session is prepared around a specific question, together with the Chair or the leadership team.
Board Sessions
Sessions with the Board on a specific strategic question, prepared with the Chair.
Strategic Off-sites
One or two days away from the day-to-day for the Board or the executive committee, with a clear decision in view.
Owner Conversations
Conversations with owners or the business family about capital, time horizon, succession and governance.
Executive Sessions
Sessions with the leadership team to turn a decision into priorities, owners and follow-up.
Every session ends with decisions, criteria or next steps. Not with a list of ideas.
Strategic Advisory
Lasting relationships. Real involvement. Conversations equal to the decision.
If there is a decision on the table, a first conversation is the best place to start.
Start a conversation