Capabilities
Usually one piece of work
Exposure assessment identifies what is worth quantifying. Quantification defines what is worth monitoring. Monitoring is what keeps a decision live. They are listed separately because they can be bought separately — not because they are independent.
Geopolitical Exposure & Materiality Assessment
“Where is geopolitical risk materially concentrated across our business?”
We map your footprint against the political, regulatory and macroeconomic conditions of each market, then rank markets by what is actually at stake for you rather than by how unstable they look.
Why the conventional answer falls short
Country risk indices rank countries. They cannot rank your countries. A market can carry severe political risk and almost no commercial consequence for your business — and a market that appears in nobody's risk ranking can hold your single largest concentration of revenue, licences or payment flows. Without your footprint inside the assessment, prioritisation is guesswork with a number attached.
How we approach it
- Build the footprint first: revenue, cost base, users or customers, suppliers, licences, entities, payment routes and currency positions, market by market.
- Assess market conditions separately from your exposure to them, so the two are never blended into a single unexplained score.
- Identify the transmission channels through which each market's conditions could actually reach your numbers.
Process
- Footprint reconstruction and data review
- Market vulnerability assessment across the relevant dimensions
- Transmission-channel mapping per market
- Exposure quantification and materiality scoring
Deliverables
- Exposure map across the footprint
- Materiality matrix with components shown separately
- Prioritised geopolitical risk register
- Market-by-market assessment notes
Duration
4–8 weeks depending on footprint and data availability
Decision supported
Where to concentrate analytical attention, monitoring budget and management time over the next planning cycle.
Quantified Scenario & Stress Testing
“What could this geopolitical risk cost us under different scenarios?”
We build baseline, downside, severe and tail variants of a specific risk, trace each one through named transmission channels into your cost and revenue structure, and express the result as a range with its assumptions attached.
Why the conventional answer falls short
"Elevated risk" cannot set a hedge, delay an expansion, reprice a product or size a provision. A scenario becomes usable at the moment it reaches a range — and a range becomes defensible only when the assumptions that produced it are written down and can be argued with.
How we approach it
- Construct scenario variants as a family, not as four separate stories, so probabilities remain coherent and comparison is meaningful.
- Make every transmission step explicit: which channel, at what intensity, reaching which line of your business.
- Express financial effects as ranges and sensitivities. Where the underlying data does not support precision, we say so rather than manufacturing it.
Process
- Scenario definition and variant structure
- Assumption setting, with explicit probability ranges and rationale
- Transmission-channel modelling
- Application to company exposure and mitigation capacity
Deliverables
- Scenario report with all four variants
- Financial-impact model, handed over and documented
- Sensitivity analysis and probability-weighted summary
- Assumption register
Duration
6–12 weeks depending on scope and data availability
Decision supported
Whether to hedge, provision, reprice, delay, restructure or accept — and at what size.
Country, Regional & Thematic Intelligence
“What is changing in our priority markets, and what does it mean for us?”
Structured assessments of the markets and themes that matter to your business — political trajectory, macroeconomic and currency conditions, regulation, social stability — each ending in business implications rather than context.
Why the conventional answer falls short
Most country coverage is written for a general reader and stops at description. It tells you an election is contested; it does not tell you which of your licences, prices or payment routes the outcome touches. The analytical work of connecting the market to the business is left to you, usually under time pressure.
How we approach it
- Cover the markets you are actually exposed to, at the depth your decisions require — not a fixed catalogue.
- Separate what is established fact from reported claim, analyst assessment and forecast, and label each accordingly.
- Close every assessment with implications for your specific exposure, not general commentary.
Process
- Scoping of markets, themes and reporting rhythm
- Source selection and evidence grading
- Assessment drafting with explicit epistemic classification
- Business-implication analysis against your exposure
Deliverables
- Quarterly regional outlooks
- Country assessments
- Thematic research notes
- Executive summaries with business implications
Duration
Recurring; ad-hoc assessments typically within days
Decision supported
How to adjust market plans, pricing, entry timing and regulatory engagement as conditions develop.
Early Warning, Triggers & Monitoring
“Which observable developments indicate that the risk is changing?”
An analyst-led monitoring framework: a small set of observable indicators tied to named scenario assumptions, with thresholds agreed in advance and a decision attached to each crossing.
Why the conventional answer falls short
Uncertainty described without thresholds produces vigilance without direction. Teams end up watching everything, which is indistinguishable from watching nothing. The value of monitoring lies in deciding, before the pressure arrives, what would change your mind and what you would do about it.
How we approach it
- Derive indicators from scenario assumptions, so each one has a reason to exist and a consequence if it moves.
- Set thresholds ex ante, with the review or decision they trigger written down at the same time.
- Keep the set small. A framework nobody reads is worse than no framework.
Process
- Indicator selection against scenario assumptions
- Threshold and escalation design with the risk owners
- Monitoring cycle: observation, analyst interpretation, alert or no alert
- Scheduled reviews and scenario refresh
Deliverables
- Trigger and indicator framework
- Watchlist with thresholds and owners
- Concise alerts, written by an analyst, with recommended action
- Monthly monitoring report and analyst review call
Duration
Continuous, following an assessment or stress test
Decision supported
When to convene, escalate, execute a pre-agreed mitigation or revisit an assumption.
Custom Risk Indices & Methodology Design
“How do we make our geopolitical risk assessment consistent and repeatable?”
We design the taxonomy, indicators, weighting, scoring and governance your organisation needs to assess geopolitical risk the same way twice — and document it well enough that internal audit can follow it.
Why the conventional answer falls short
Organisations that assess geopolitical risk without a defined method get different answers from different teams, cannot compare this quarter to the last, and cannot explain to a regulator or a board why a rating moved. Consistency is not a bureaucratic virtue here; it is what makes a trend real rather than an artefact of who did the work.
How we approach it
- Design for the decisions the index has to support. An index that is not wired to a decision will not survive its second year.
- Keep components separable and legible. Anyone reading a score must be able to open it and see what moved.
- Specify governance alongside the model: who can change a value, on what evidence, with what record, and how versions are handled.
Process
- Requirements and decision mapping
- Taxonomy and dimension design
- Indicator selection, weighting and aggregation rules
- Confidence and evidence-quality methodology
Deliverables
- Custom risk index specification
- Methodology handbook
- Indicator dictionary with definitions and sources
- Scoring and aggregation framework
Duration
8–14 weeks depending on scope and validation requirements
Decision supported
How geopolitical risk enters enterprise risk management, planning and board reporting on a permanent basis.
Executive & Board Advisory
“How should management read this, and what should it decide?”
Direct senior support for the moments where the analysis has to become a decision: board papers, executive memoranda, scenario workshops, crisis briefings and preparation ahead of high-impact events.
Why the conventional answer falls short
Analysis that cannot be presented in twenty minutes does not reach a decision. Boards need the range, the assumptions that drive it, the observable that would change it and the options on the table — in that order, and in language that does not require a briefing to interpret.
How we approach it
- Write to the decision, not to the research. The memorandum leads with what is being asked of the reader.
- Show uncertainty rather than hide it: ranges, probabilities and the confidence attached to each judgement.
- Rehearse the hard questions before the meeting, including the ones that undermine our own conclusion.
Process
- Decision framing and question definition
- Evidence assembly and gap identification
- Drafting of board or executive material
- Challenge session with management
Deliverables
- Board papers and executive memoranda
- Scenario workshops and tabletop exercises
- Crisis briefings
- Talking points and anticipated questions
Duration
Days to weeks, aligned to the governance calendar
Decision supported
The decision itself — with a record of what was known, assumed and uncertain at the time it was taken.
Engagement formats
How you buy it
The capabilities above describe what we do. These describe how you buy it. Fees are set per engagement and are not published — the scope determines them, and the scope is the first thing we agree.
Rapid Exposure Scan
“Where should we be looking, and what have we been missing?”
2–4 weeks
A structured pass over the footprint to locate concentration, name the leading risk hypotheses and establish whether deeper work is warranted.
Usually followed by a full diagnostic or a single targeted stress test.
- Priority exposure map
- Preliminary materiality assessment
- Leading risk hypotheses, with reasoning
- Executive readout
- Recommendation on what merits deeper analysis
Full Geopolitical Risk Diagnostic
“What is our complete geopolitical risk position, and what does it cost?”
6–10 weeks
Exposure assessment, prioritisation, quantified scenarios for the material risks, trigger architecture and mitigation options — assembled into one defensible position.
Typically transitions into monitoring, or into methodology work to make it repeatable.
- Detailed exposure analysis
- Prioritised risk register
- Quantified scenarios with impact ranges
- Trigger architecture
- Mitigation options with decision points
- Executive presentation
Quantified Stress Test
“If this specific scenario happens, what is the range and what do we do?”
6–12 weeks depending on scope and data availability
One named risk, taken from scenario construction through transmission modelling to financial ranges, sensitivities and decision options.
Assumptions become monitored triggers; the model is handed over and can be re-run.
- Four-variant scenario structure
- Transmission-channel models
- Financial-impact ranges and sensitivities
- Probability-weighted results
- Assumption register
- Decision options and board briefing
Continuous Advisory Retainer
“How do we keep this current without building the function in-house?”
Rolling, reviewed periodically
A standing relationship with the same analysts: recurring research, active monitoring, scenario maintenance and availability when something moves.
Reviewed against the decisions it has actually supported, not against volume delivered.
- Recurring regional and country outlooks
- Alerts on monitored triggers
- Scenario maintenance and quarterly refresh
- Regular executive briefings
- Ad-hoc analysis on request
- Direct analyst access and periodic methodology review