We help you govern the decisions that arrive between assessments, when the board expects a figure, its basis, and an advisor prepared to stand behind it.
Overview
The enterprise’s growth strategy depends on its cyber, data and AI estate, and the commitments attached to that estate, to customers, lenders and regulators, set the pace at which growth can proceed. The interval between the two is a capital allocation, a leadership determination and a board-level exposure, and it is seldom governed as one matter.
When the board asks what a failure would cost, the answer is most often given from judgement, on an assessment no longer current.
We advise boards, executive leadership and investors on that interval through a continuing engagement. A senior advisor is retained for the term and works from a priced view of how the enterprise is constructed and what each commitment would cost to break. Before each decision that depends on it, we provide a written recommendation with its figures and the confidence attached to each. Execution remains with the sponsor.
Mandate Alignment
The advisor’s mandate is set against the growth strategy and the obligations that protect it, not against the threat environment alone.
We agree with the sponsor, in writing, the decisions on which counsel will be sought, the cadence of reporting to leadership and the board, and the standard against which the function is measured. The deliverable is a mandate reconciled to growth and protection, and a priced position from which every recommendation is argued.
Leadership and Operating Model
Value from the engagement is determined by where the advisor sits and what the advice rests on, not by the hours retained.
As independent counsel, our senior advisor serves the sponsor and the board from outside the function. The incumbent leader retains the seat and gains a financial basis for the investments the function proposes. Where the seat is vacant, our advisor may hold it until an appointment is made. The deliverable is senior judgement present when decisions are taken, with every proposal reaching the executive committee stated in cost, return and confidence.
Governance Architecture and Enterprise Velocity
Governance that cannot price what it protects slows the enterprise and cannot say by how much.
Any decision that depends on how the enterprise is constructed may be referred to us, an acquisition, a critical supplier’s renewal, a reduction in budget, a new market, and is returned as a written opinion before it is taken. The opinion states the decision’s effect on exposure, the effect of the alternatives, and our recommendation, with the amount at stake and its range. The course may be to invest, transfer, retain, release capital, or accept additional exposure where the strategy requires it. The deliverable is a decision taken inside the window the event allows, on figures the board can examine.
Outcomes
Growth and Protection, Fully Funded
Once the enterprise’s exposure is stated in dollars, protection becomes a capital allocation the board can govern as it governs any other. Spending that reduces a priced loss is justified by its return, spending that reduces none is released, and the difference between the two is set out each quarter in a resilience balance sheet presented with the financial statements.
One contract, for example, pays a $50,000 credit for each day a 48-hour shipping level is missed. A five-day loss of a planning system misses that level for six days, the backlog clearing two days after the system returns, and the exposure under that single contract is $300,000. Protection is weighed against figures of that kind.
At the close of the term that position is recorded in a signed statement on which a regulator, an insurer or an acquirer may rely. Protection and growth are then argued from a single allocation, in the same terms, before the same board.
The instruments below are those most often drawn on under the retainer. Twenty-seven are available to the engagement, and the advisor selects the one the decision requires.
Instrument
Stakeholder
Decision
Materialiti Return Gradient Review
CFO
Which protection to retire, which to strengthen, and in what order.
Materialiti Tail Opinion
CFO
The retention, limits and reserves to hold against the severe loss.
Materialiti Commitment Net Advisory
CEO and general counsel
How far the next commitment to a customer may go, and which to refuse.
Materialiti Floor Signal Advisory
Board of directors
The level of service the enterprise undertakes to hold, and the exposure it accepts beneath it.
Materialiti Event Trace Review
Executive team
Each day of a disruption, how much to hold back and how soon to resume.
Materialiti Cascade Net Advisory
Audit committee
Whether the resilience figures before the board can be signed, and what to correct first.
Materialiti Merge Graph Review
Operating partner
Where to intervene across the portfolio, and what to report to the fund's investors.
Materialiti Model Node Review
Head of AI
Whether to deploy, and what the enterprise may represent about human oversight.
Materialiti Gradient Advisory
Board of directors
The next increment of resilience to fund, its return, and the point at which to stop.
Engagement
Value Engineered
A retainer is measured by the judgement it places at the point of decision, and by whether anyone answers for it afterwards.
Step 01
Take Up the Mandate
In the opening weeks our advisor meets the sponsor, the chair of the audit committee and the leadership of the function to establish what no model records:
the demands of the plan and their timing,
the capacity of the team that carries it,
and the exposure the board is prepared to accept.
Our advisor then knows which decisions of the coming period will turn on resilience, and which questions the board will raise.
Step 02
Hold a Standing Place
Our advisor’s place in the governance calendar is fixed at the outset: the sponsor’s preparation ahead of each audit committee, attendance at the committee at the sponsor’s discretion, and the executive sessions at which budgets, contracts and acquisitions are determined. Executives have direct access to our advisor between meetings.
Step 03
Form the Opinion
An opinion on a referred decision is composed of two parts.
The figures come from the priced view of the enterprise.
The judgement derives from our advisor: whether the plan can bear the change, whether the organisation can carry it, and whether the board would accept the exposure that remains.
Both are set out in writing for the sponsor to present, and our advisor presents them to the board on request.
Step 04
Answer for the Advice
At each cycle our advisor accounts for the recommendations of the previous one: which were adopted, what followed, and how the position moved in consequence. Our advisor, who gave that counsel, is the person who answers for it before the board.
Client Success
Built on Trust and Results
Our engagements begin with a sponsor who must answer for the enterprise’s resilience and cannot yet do so on evidence. A chief financial officer who has approved a rising protection budget without a stated return. A general counsel with four business days to determine whether an incident is material. An owner whose investment thesis rests on an estate its management cannot fully account for.
In each, the sponsor’s next answer is a figure with its basis, given with the person who produced it in the room.
"Materialiti have been transformational. Our DSO improved by 17 days, freeing up $5.2M in working capital. We went from an 18-day billing cycle to 6 days consistently."
Jane Berwick
Managing Partner
$180K
Cost Savings
94%
Increase in ARR
10x
ROI
The Briefing
