FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND DELIVERY TEAMS
Independent review of your most important strategic decisions.
Before you commit to a major investment or strategic proposal, Dr Paul A. Phillips personally tests the business case, financial assumptions, alternatives and ability to deliver.
You receive a clear recommendation: Proceed, Change, Stage or Stop, with the reasons and conditions for action.
Former finance leader, Price Waterhouse consultant, Director of Kent Business School and founding business school CEO.
University restructuring · Major investments · Sustainability and AI
WHAT
What exactly must be authorised, by whom, against which alternatives?
WHETHER
Do the evidence and financial consequences justify commitment?
HOW
Who owns delivery, and what are the stop rules?
Four possible outcomes. One defensible basis for commitment.
What happens if you’re wrong?
Ambition into accountable action
A worked example
Sustainable Strategy Brief Live
Start a confidential conversation
— 01 · What clients gain
What happens if you're wrong?
Every CFO asks two questions: how much do we get back, and what happens if we’re wrong? Most proposals can’t answer both. Here are five reasons to test before committing. The return is not more analysis, but greater clarity on what to approve, what to change and what consequences to own.
01
Decision confidence
Expose weak assumptions and unresolved questions before they become commitments.
02
Integrated value
Examine financial returns alongside academic, environmental, social and institutional value.
03
Downside protection
Identify hidden dependencies, capability loss and consequences costly to reverse.
04
Governed ownership
Clarify who approves the decision, who delivers it and what evidence they need.
05
Conditions for action
Set practical approval conditions, milestones and explicit change or stop rules.
— 02 · Three pathways
Choose the route that fits your decision.
Two independent Decision Tests for a single material proposal, and one learning pathway that builds the capability to make better decisions yourselves.
01
— Higher education
University Decision Test
For: Vice-Chancellors, CFOs, COOs, Deans, HODs and governing bodies approaching a major approval: portfolio restructuring, international expansion, merger or collaboration.
Financial sustainability, without losing sight of institutional purpose.
A cut is an action, not a strategy.
- Decision Charter and evidence request
- Integrated financial, academic and institutional value assessment
- Decision Report: Proceed, Change, Stage or Stop, with conditions
Duration
Timed to a live approval decision
Your time
Evidence pack and focused sponsor interviews
Investment
Fixed fee, agreed at scoping.
02
— Sustainability investment
Sustainability Decision Test
For: boards, CFOs, CSOs and organisational managers weighing sustainable strategies, decarbonisation, circular economy, natural capital or sustainable technology and AI investments.
A strong sustainability ambition is not yet a credible investment case. Make it investment-grade.
- Value, evidence and cash-consequence assessment
- Transition risk, dependencies and delivery readiness examined
- Decision Report: Proceed, Change, Stage or Stop, with conditions
Duration
Decision-led
Scheduled before commitment
Your time
Evidence pack and focused leadership input
Investment
Fixed-fee proposal
Set after scoping
03
— Capability building
Executive Learning
Outcome: a tested case, named owners and an action plan with success measures and review points, scoped to the chosen format.
Bring a live organisational decision. Leave with a practical basis for action.
Format
Length
Group
Clarify the case and approval questions
Half or full day
Boards and executive teams
Test assumptions, ownership and conditions
Tailored sessions
Leadership teams
Develop the case, action plan and review measures
Sponsor-defined
Sponsored senior leaders
Executive Learning can be commissioned on its own. A Decision Test is not a prerequisite.
— 03 · See how the judgement changes
A promising business case can still be the wrong decision.
The test is whether a proposal remains defensible once assumptions, competing forms of value and delivery consequences are examined together.
ILLUSTRATIVE UNIVERSITY SCENARIO · NOT A CLIENT CASE OR VERIFIED CLIENT OUTCOME
Original proposal
Approve closure of a low-recruitment programme to reduce expenditure.
Independent challenge
Scrutinise net savings, transition costs, shared teaching dependencies, future demand and academic capability at risk.
Revised decision
STAGE the closure pending a verified financial baseline, funded transition and evidence of academic consequences.
What changes
Immediate approval becomes a conditional decision, with named ownership, measurable thresholds and a clear review point.
Decision value: Uncosted commitments and potentially irreversible capability loss are exposed before approval. This describes the illustrative logic, not a claimed client saving.
— For the sponsor
An independent test is not an audit of your judgement.
A Change, Stage or Stop is not a verdict on the people who built the case. It shows what would make the proposal approvable, before the cost of finding out falls on the institution.
No surprises. Findings are discussed with the sponsor before they are reported.
Your document. The Decision Report belongs to you and goes where you decide.
Confidential by default. Nothing is shared or cited without permission.
Challenge, not blame. The test examines the proposal, not the people.
— 04 · The strategic foundation
IGSS™
Investment-Grade Sustainable Strategy
01
Trade-offs made explicit, not hidden inside a persuasive narrative.
02
Financial, environmental, social and institutional value assessed together, over time.
03
Long-term ambition grounded in evidence that a board can scrutinise and defend.
GO DEEPER
THE BOOK
Sustainable Strategic Management
Leadership with Purpose (Routledge, 2026). Presents the strategic thinking, frameworks and toolkits behind the approach.
— 05 · The decision and implementation framework
IGSOS™
01 Decision
02 Evidence
03 Financial consequence
04 Ownership
05 Action & stop rules
Every assignment ends in a clear recommendation: Proceed, Change, Stage or Stop, with stated evidence gaps, accountable owners and conditions for action.
— 06 · Join the conversation
Not ready to test a decision? Start with the conversation.
Sustainable Strategy Brief Live (SSBL) is Dr Phillips’s executive conversation series on financial credibility, value creation, governance and consequential choices.
New briefings, expert interviews and live sessions, on YouTube.
1 · LISTEN
Join an SSBL conversation
See how investment-grade questions are put to real strategic choices.
2 · APPLY
Bring it to your team
Explore Executive Learning to build the same discipline internally.
3 · DECIDE
Test a live decision
When a commitment is on the table, discuss a Decision Test.
— 07 · Principal-led
The person who scopes the work does the work.
Dr Paul A. Phillips leads every assignment personally, drawing on specialist associates where a mandate requires it. His experience connects financial scrutiny, institutional purpose and the leadership capability needed to turn decisions into action.
01
Financial leadership
Former Financial Controller at a national motor distributor, responsible for divisional performance management.
02
Management consultancy
Former Senior Consultant at Price Waterhouse.
03
Higher education leadership
Professor of Strategic Management, former Director of Kent Business School and CEO of a university-based, fully asynchronous international graduate business school dedicated to the UN’s 17 SDGs.
04
Strategic advisory experience
Advised the UK Government, Ministry of Defence, China Development Bank and organisations across higher education, hospitality and tourism.
Executive leadership development
Completed Harvard Business School’s Leading Change and Organizational Renewal programme, AACSB’s New and Experienced Deans’ Seminars and the International Deans’ Programme delivered by the Association of Business Schools and EFMD.
Published thinking and engagement
Author of Sustainable Strategic Management: Leadership with Purpose (Routledge, 2026), and Founder and Host of Sustainable Strategy Brief Live.
Every engagement is scoped to the decision and the evidence available. It complements, rather than replaces, specialist audit, legal or transaction due diligence.
— Start the conversation
What significant decision is on your agenda?
If your organisation is approaching a significant investment, restructuring or strategic commitment, a confidential discussion can establish whether independent decision assurance would add value before approval.
1. Brief enquiry about a live decision or programme.
2. Confidential conversation to test fit and timing.
3. A defined scope and proposal, if appropriate.
OR EMAIL DIRECTLY
Request a confidential discussion
A short enquiry is enough. Please do not share confidential material. An independent test is not an audit of your judgement.