Insights
Analysis and perspectives on strategic governance, risk management, and board-level performance from Owen Vallis and the Marentis Labs team.
August 2026 · 6 min read
A Nature paper retracted in December 2025 had already fed the NGFS Phase V scenarios, and those scenarios feed filed TCFD and UK SRS disclosures across the financial sector. Nobody in that chain built the flawed model, and no model risk framework governs it.
Read article →July 2026 · 7 min read
St James's Place and Metro Bank show board challenge failing from opposite sides: a warning raised and left to sit, and a warning never made at all. Both point to the same missing control, and to why better directors and stronger culture do not supply it.
Read article →July 2026 · 5 min read
Hold-period governance is built for the sponsor. The standard an institutional buyer applies in diligence is tougher, and the gap shows up at valuation. Why the 12 to 24 months before a sale is the window to close it.
Read article →June 2026 · 7 min read
Boards sign off the capital number a stress test produces and take its assumptions on trust. The discretion that sets the number sits in the inputs, and that is the half of the test most boards never govern.
Read article →June 2026 · 5 min read
Derivative lawsuit settlements put a court-supervised price on absent boardroom challenge. Six failure modes, one shared structural feature, and a cost that runs far beyond the settlement figure.
Read article →June 2026 · 5 min read
Weak governance hands a buyer the cheapest reason to discount a PE exit, the stale financial models, unhedged debt and thin covenant headroom they find in diligence. Here is how pre-exit governance closes those gaps and protects portfolio company cash flow.
Read article →June 2026 · 5 min read
Two years after a severe crisis, affected firms recover to about 103% of pre-crisis value while the market reaches 115%. The twelve-point gap does not close, and it is the line item boards almost never price.
Read article →June 2026 · 5 min read
Four in five severe governance failures originate outside internal controls, in strategy and external risk. The $72 billion GRC market is built for the other 19%.
Read article →June 2026 · 5 min read
A capable NED cohort is not a governance function. The substitution is structural, and it leaves boards exposed in exactly the way governance failures have been exposed for twenty years.
Read article →May 2026 · 5 min read
The global GRC market is worth $72 billion and growing at 13% a year. Governance failures have not slowed. The gap is structural — and no framework can fix it.
Read article →May 2026 · 7 min read
In 2027, FTSE 350 boards will sign the first mandatory declarations confirming their material internal controls were effective. A practical briefing on what each mandate requires and what adequate preparation looks like.
Read article →September 2025 · 6 min read
The across-the-board budget cut is lazy, demoralising, and strategically blind. A disciplined risk/return framework for making surgical cuts that strengthen rather than weaken the business.
Read article →August 2025 · 7 min read
Modern risk environments are defined by simultaneous, interconnected failures. A practical framework for boards facing geopolitical instability, supply chain fragility, and systemic uncertainty at the same time.
Read article →Interactive Insights
Each interactive isolates one argument from the 90-page Strategic Governance as a Service paper. Each can be explored in under three minutes.
Open the interactive hub →Curated external resources on governance, risk, and board performance that inform and complement our advisory work.