Consulting · Project or ongoing advisory
You bring the decision. We research what it actually rests on.
Consulting here is research applied to a live decision: which market, whether to enter, whether the case holds, what a policy turn does to the plan. For investors, family offices, corporates and their advisers, across whichever markets the question names.
Available as a defined project or an ongoing advisory relationship. Scope, format and cadence are agreed for the engagement.
What consulting is here
Research applied to one decision.
An engagement is a piece of research with a decision at the end of it. Not a framework off the shelf, not a team billed by the week, not execution. One decision, researched to institutional standard against the alternatives it actually competes with.
The question sets the market. A mandate can run across developed markets, emerging markets or both; India is where the work goes deepest, not where it stops. The founder scopes every engagement and reviews every deliverable, and the people you speak to are the people doing the work.
What the work covers
Four broad groups · A hundred questions inside them
Four broad shapes, not a menu. The questions inside them are many, and some of the ways they arrive are listed further down. An engagement is scoped to the decision in front of you and may draw on more than one.
Opportunity assessment and market comparison
Where should the capital, the plant or the plan go, and against what?
A screen of the universe against your objective, then a like-for-like comparison of the candidates that survive it, on one framework built for the decision: growth and demand, external position, credit, currency, valuation, access, governance, policy. The weights are stated. The verdict is argued, not averaged.
Lands as a shortlist you can defend to a committee, or a verdict between named markets, with the excluded candidates accounted for.
Not a portfolio recommendation, and not regulated advice. The decision stays with you.
Market entry, expansion and location
Enter, expand or wait, by which route, and where should the next plant or supplier sit?
How large the market is and how fast it is growing, from official statistics rather than vendor totals. How demand and channels are structured, who competes and how they win, what regulation and ownership rules shape the route in. For a footprint decision, which locations can take the volume at what cost and lead time, tested against the alternative of staying put. The China+1 question, across India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico and Thailand, is the worked example.
Lands as an entry, expansion or relocation case a board can approve, defer or decline with the reasons on the table.
Not implementation, site selection, partner search or the legal and tax advice the route may need.
Sector and competitive research
How is the sector really structured, who earns in it, and where could a newcomer credibly position?
Concentration, competitors and their economics, growth drivers and their durability, pricing, margins, capital intensity, the regulatory frame and where it is moving, from filings, disclosures and official data. Where the sector spans markets, the picture is drawn on one frame so they can be read against each other.
Lands as a sector view you can act on: where the returns are made, who makes them, and what would have to be true for a newcomer to share in them.
Not built on non-public information; the work stays with filings, disclosures and official data. Not a recommendation on any security.
Policy, scenarios and board decision support
A policy has changed, or rates, currencies or trade may move. What does it do to your position, and how does the board test that?
The consequences of a specific measure, in any jurisdiction, traced through channels rather than headlines: rates, currency, credit, trade, costs, demand, ownership. A small number of internally consistent scenarios rather than a fan of everything, with the signposts that show which one is arriving. Where the decision is going to a committee, the work is built around the meeting and presented in the room by the people who did it.
Lands as what has actually changed for you, what has not, what to watch, and a decision stress-tested before it is made.
Not legal or tax advice on the measure. We inform the decision; we do not take it, vote on it or implement it.
The questions that arrive
Some of a hundred · One line each
Questions rarely arrive labelled by group. These are some of the ways they come through the door; if yours turns on evidence, it belongs here too.
A pre-IPO question
What the market will pay for this business, on comparables and the evidence, before the roadshow says so.
A currency question
What the currency has done to a foreign investor’s return, and what the regime implies for the next five years.
A deficit question
Whether a government’s balance sheet can carry its plans, and at what rate.
A tariff question
Who pays, who absorbs and who moves when a tariff lands on your supply chain.
A rates question
What a change in the cost of capital does to a valuation, a project or a portfolio.
A market-selection question
Which of five markets deserves the next allocation, measured like for like.
An entry-route question
Organic, partnership, acquisition or greenfield, for this market and this appetite.
A location question
Where the next plant, supplier or hub should sit, for this sector, at what cost and lead time.
A sector question
Who competes, who earns, and what lets a newcomer in.
A policy question
What a budget, a central-bank turn or a new ownership rule does to your position.
A scenario question
If rates, currencies or demand move, what happens to the plan, and what shows which way it is going.
A thesis question
What your existing view fails to account for, argued against you before the market does it.
A committee question
What evidence should reach the board, in what form, and who defends it in the room.
A peer-set question
Compared with what? The alternatives, named before the analysis is written.
A data question
Whether the series your model rests on says what you think it says, and where it breaks.
And yours.
If it turns on evidence and a decision hangs on it, bring it. The scoping call decides whether it can be answered well.
How a mandate is framed
Six lines · Agreed in writing
It starts with a scoping call. If the question cannot be answered well, you hear that on the call, before anything is spent. What follows is written down, the same six lines whether the work is a project or the next question inside an ongoing relationship.
- The decision
- What is being decided, by whom and by when.
- The alternatives
- What it is really a choice between, named before any analysis is written.
- The comparators
- The markets, peers or jurisdictions the answer runs against.
- The evidence
- Official data, filings and primary documents, assembled and dated in-house. Gaps stated, not filled.
- The judgement
- Labelled as judgement, with the conditions that would change it written beside it.
- The output
- Report, memo, deck, model, briefing or live presentation. Format, timing and fee agreed up front; one round of revision included.
Consulting and research fees are the only revenue. No products, no execution, no external capital. A conclusion is allowed to be inconvenient.
How the work arrives
Agreed for the engagement
- 01Research report: the full argument, sources dated, data shown
- 02Executive memo: the answer, written for the committee pack
- 03Committee or board presentation: built to be presented, or forwarded
- 04Economic or financial model: with assumptions your side can change
- 05Data appendix or dashboard: every series sourced, dated, rebuildable
- 06In the room: live presentation, workshop, or a call before the meeting and after it
The format follows the decision. In an ongoing relationship the formats recur on the agreed rhythm, with rapid responses between them.
Who engages consulting
Five kinds of client · One kind of question
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01
Asset managers and allocation teams
Choosing between markets, re-examining the assumptions a model inherited, testing a scenario before the committee does.
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02
Family offices and private capital
Sizing a commitment against the alternatives, on a basis the principals can question directly rather than take on trust.
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03
Corporates and strategy teams
Entry, expansion and footprint decisions, and what a policy change does to the plan.
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04
Private equity and growth investors
Sector intelligence ahead of a thesis, market comparison across a regional mandate, and the regulatory reads that change an underwriting.
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05
Professional firms, boards and committees
A research layer built to source standard inside their own work, and the evidence presented in the room by the people who did it.
Where the questions recur, an ongoing relationship keeps your context on our side of the table. Where emerging markets or India are the subject, the Emerging Markets Desk and the India Desk bring the depth. Where you need the research itself rather than a recommendation, see Research.
Bring the decision.
Tell us what you are deciding and the markets it touches. You will get a straight view on whether it can be answered well, and whether it is a project or an ongoing relationship.