What kind of problems do you address?
Institutional rather than operational problems: governance that exists on paper but not in practice, structure that has not kept pace with growth, overlapping competences, requirements that cannot be evidenced to a funder or auditor, decisions taken without analysis, institutional dependence on one person, and newly established organisations facing structural decisions that are costly to revisit.
How are you different from a larger consultancy?
Three practical differences. The engagement is carried out by the person you discussed it with, not by a team you have not met. We accept a limited number of mandates at any one time, which is a deliberate constraint. And we decline mandates that do not meet our independence or capacity criteria rather than accepting them and distributing them internally.
Conversely: if you need a large team deployed in the field for months, we are not the right practice, and we will say so in the first conversation.
When does an organisation need external expertise?
When the question is internal by nature and therefore difficult for people inside the organisation to answer neutrally: a dispute over authority, an assessment of a structure designed by the people who would assess it, or a decision affecting the position of specific individuals. When a review is required whose credibility depends on its independence. And when the internal capability exists but the time does not.
Where none of that applies, internal work is better and cheaper, and we say so.
How does it start, and is the first conversation chargeable?
It starts with a confidential initial discussion carrying no cost and no obligation. Its purpose is to establish what the problem actually is, whether it is one we can address, and what scope would be proportionate. If there is a basis to proceed, we set out a written mandate with objectives, scope, deliverables, timeline and fee.
How are fees determined?
As a fixed project fee set against the agreed scope of the deliverable, not as an hourly rate. The fee is stated in full in the written proposal before work begins and does not change unless the scope changes by written agreement.
We do not publish standard rates, because two mandates carrying the same title can differ several-fold in size. Where a budget is constrained, we reduce the scope to a smaller usable deliverable rather than providing diminished work at the same price.
How long does an engagement take?
It depends entirely on scope. The timeline is set in the written mandate before work begins, with stages and delivery dates. What usually extends an engagement is not the analysis but waiting for information or decisions from inside the organisation, which is why the mandate specifies what we need from you and when.
Who does the work?
Framing, methodology, the client relationship and final review stay within the practice. Where a mandate requires specialised knowledge, we engage an expert from our network selected according to what the mandate requires, bound by the same confidentiality obligations. The practice remains accountable to you for the final output in all cases.
How do you handle confidentiality?
Client identities and mandate details are confidential by default and are not disclosed without written authorisation — including for our own promotional use. That is why you will find no client names or testimonials on this site.
Any expert who will see mandate information signs a confidentiality agreement before seeing it, not afterwards.
What languages do you work in?
English, French and Arabic. Deliverables are produced in the working language agreed in the mandate. For documents governed by French law, the French version is authoritative.
Do you decline mandates?
Yes. Every prospective engagement is assessed against three criteria: independence, expertise and capacity. We decline where a mandate would compromise our neutrality, where it falls outside our areas of expertise, or where we do not have the capacity to deliver it to the required standard within the required timeframe.
That refusal is not a formality. It is what makes the independence credible.
A question not answered here?
Every engagement begins with a confidential initial discussion. There is no cost and no obligation attached to it.