01
A leadership transition
A CTO, CFO or COO is leaving. What will the next leader actually inherit?
A replacement may not resolve a problem rooted in unclear authority, broken handoffs or decisions nobody documented.
For venture capital / Independent operating investigations
When a portfolio company's explanations stop matching its results.
Help a founder understand what needs to change. We investigate one consequential operating question across people, decisions, processes, data and software.
A recommendation. Not an inspection.
The fund makes the introduction.
The company decides, contracts and pays.
Four weeks after agreed access is ready. No automatic investor access to findings.
Three moments to remember us
Offer a way to understand the problem. Not another answer to accept.
02
Results stop matching the plan
More people and infrastructure. Still no shared explanation for missed outcomes.
Functional leaders may each have a reasonable account. Leadership needs to know which explanations hold up against the records.
03
The company outgrows direct oversight
The founder can no longer see how important decisions turn into work.
More systems, teams and dependencies make the connections harder to see, just when the consequences become more significant.
These are reasons to offer help, not predetermined diagnoses. A recommendation creates no obligation to buy.
The company's decision
The visible symptom may not be the cause.
Before a costly hire, reorganization or rewrite, leadership needs to know what is actually producing the result.
What leadership sees
What we might investigate
Delivery slows despite hiring
How work enters the team, who changes priorities and where requirements are agreed.
Finance and growth disagree on margin
Revenue definitions, cost treatment, reporting periods and aggregation rules.
Sales grow alongside complaints and returns
The chain from marketing promises to product configuration, fulfilment and support.
Possible lines of inquiry, not findings about your company. The evidence may support the original explanation, reveal another mechanism or leave the cause unresolved.
One connected investigation
Follow the question across the boundaries.
Each team sees a part of the chain. We connect its account to decisions, primary records and the systems that make the work happen.
Organizational history
How did we get here?
Approved conversations, meeting records, tasks, documents and targeted interviews reconstruct priorities, commitments and decision ownership.
Operational facts
What actually happened?
Primary transactions and operating records test reporting definitions, commercial handoffs and the consequences people describe.
Software reality
How does it work in practice?
Code, configurations and dependencies show how business rules are implemented and where information changes meaning.
Senior interpretation
Which explanation holds up?
Technology, organization and analytics specialists challenge interpretations, seek counterexamples and recommend priorities.
See the reasoning
Follow a reporting disagreement from source definitions through independent checks to a leadership decision. See what supports a finding, what remains uncertain and why the next step is not necessarily a new system or a new hire.
See how we test a reporting disagreementWhat the company buys
A better basis for the next decision.
01 / Deliverable
Operating Map
The processes, people, systems, decisions and dependencies that shape the agreed area. Not a claim to map the entire company.
02 / Deliverable
Evidence-Based Findings
Source-linked observations, contradictions, competing explanations, confidence and explicit gaps in what can be established.
03 / Deliverable
Intervention Roadmap
Proposed 30/60/90-day priorities, owner roles, prerequisites and ways to verify progress. Including what not to change yet.
04 / Deliverable
Management Handover
A review of findings and supporting evidence with authorized leadership. A working record for the CEO, COO, CTO, CFO or incoming executive.
See how evidence becomes a handover.
A fictional CTO-transition sample shows source references, ownership, uncertainty and proposed actions. It is illustrative, not client work or a measured outcome.
Independence is part of the product
Useful support should not become hidden oversight.
The fund
Recommend a resource.
Recognize a situation, offer an introduction and let the founder decide. The fund does not commission or pay for the investigation, and receives no automatic information rights.
The company
Own the engagement.
Decide whether to proceed. Contract and pay directly. Agree the question, sources, exclusions, permissions and recipients under the contract and applicable governance obligations.
Blatt
Follow the evidence.
Work directly with company leadership. No hidden reporting to the referring fund. Conclusions do not depend on CEO or investor expectations, including when evidence challenges a management decision.
Company payment alone does not eliminate conflicts. Independence also requires transparent communications, agreed information rights and findings that can be challenged against evidence.
Evidence of the method
One question. Several parts of the business.
In a publishing and e-commerce engagement, operational and financial reports did not agree. The investigation connected reporting logic, product records, conversations and departmental responsibilities.
What the investigation found
Inconsistent cost treatment, mismatched reporting periods and missing checks between product promises and actual product content.
What leadership received
A documented diagnosis, an evidence register, prioritized actions and engineering handoffs. Not proof of cost savings or a completed operational turnaround.
This demonstrates the diagnostic method, not a validated VC-referral outcome. The case is not attributed to every expert in the current roster.
Read how the client-work evidence was connectedSenior judgment
Different disciplines. One reviewable conclusion.
Technology, people and analytics specialists challenge the explanation together, including what to retain or defer.
Michal is the accountable lead. Expert participation and responsibilities are agreed in the proposal, not a promise of full-time staffing or participation in every past case.
Meet the experts and their rolesFour weeks, after access
Bounded scope. Reviewable reasoning.
One material operating question or connected business area. We can cross functions where the evidence requires it, within agreed boundaries.
Week 1
Establish
Agree the decision, scope, recipients, approved sources and competing explanations. Identify missing context.
Week 2
Reconstruct
Trace decisions, workflows, operating data and relevant system behaviour. Test early hypotheses against primary records.
Week 3
Challenge
Senior specialists compare findings, seek counterexamples and develop options, owner roles and priorities.
Week 4
Hand over
Review the operating map, evidence-backed findings, unresolved questions and proposed action sequence with leadership.
The four-week period begins once agreed access is ready. Scope and fixed fee are confirmed in writing. This is not a full-company scan or a promise to establish every cause. Implementation, recruiting and formal assurance are separate.
Before an introduction
Clear expectations on both sides.
Can the fund commission or pay for the investigation?
No. In this referral model, the portfolio company is the client, contracting party and sole payer. The fund offers an introduction; the company independently decides whether to proceed.
Does the referring investor receive the report?
Not automatically. Company leadership agrees recipients and distribution under the contract and applicable governance obligations. We do not privately report findings to a referring fund through a hidden channel.
Will you assess the founder or executive team?
We investigate decisions, responsibilities and operating consequences. Findings may address management decisions when supported by evidence. We do not conduct covert personnel assessments for investors or produce executive rankings.
What if the initial diagnosis is wrong?
That is a reason to investigate, not a failure of the process. We test competing explanations and distinguish verified observations from unresolved hypotheses. The recommendation may be not to replace a leader, rewrite a system or hire more people.
What access is needed, and where is information processed?
Sources, exclusions, permissions, recipients, processing and deletion terms are agreed before work. We use approved read-only access in a client-controlled Google Cloud environment. Separately approved model API requests may leave that environment; client control does not mean all processing stays inside GCP. No confidential records or credentials are needed for the first conversation.
Does the engagement include implementation?
No. The standard diagnostic ends with a management-ready investigation and proposed plan. Implementation, executive recruitment and formal financial, security or compliance assurance require separate scope. Four weeks does not mean the operating problem will be fixed in that time.
Start with fit, not access
A useful introduction starts with the founder's choice.
We can first discuss when a recommendation makes sense, without confidential company information. With the company's consent, the next conversation is directly with its leadership.