BoardBrain’s founder spent nearly three decades at a top-tier strategy firm, serving both private-equity owners and publicly listed companies. The contrast became impossible to ignore: privately owned companies are usually governed better — and create more value — because the owner, the board and the CEO work from a single, rigorous value-creation thesis.
In too many listed companies the board is under-engaged and dependent on management for its information, so it delegates judgement to the CEO. The result is trapped value — not a rounding error, but billions sitting locked inside good companies. Around 63% of listed companies earn below their cost of capital; the bottom quartile loses 30–50% of its value over a decade; and by the time an activist arrives, two-thirds of the loss has already happened.
BoardBrain exists to unlock it — by giving the public-company board the clarity a private owner takes for granted.
BoardBrain is not run by a model — and not by one person. Behind the system sits a senior circle: nearly three decades of top-tier strategy consulting; a former global head of equity research at a leading investment bank; investors who have run institutional money; and deep command of the activist playbook. The system does the reading. They do the judging — as they have all their careers, with real money and real reputations at stake.
Nothing ships unread. Every file is challenged, red-teamed and signed off by a senior reviewer before it reaches a boardroom. The machine makes the depth possible; the people make it decision-grade.
Nearly three decades at a top-tier strategy firm — value creation for owners, boards and chief executives, across sectors and continents.
Senior equity-research leadership from a leading investment bank — the sell-side’s standards, analyst by analyst.
Practitioners who have run institutional money and lived with the consequences of their own theses.
Deep study of the campaign playbook — how targets are picked, how cases are built, how value is forced — used in the company’s service, not against it.
We do not serve the CEO, and we do not serve the board. We serve better value creation — and we tell the truth, traced to its source. That independence is not a risk to a board or a CEO; it is the reason they can trust that what BoardBrain says is true, not merely convenient.
When the analysis shows a clear, evidenced case for value being left on the table, the case escalates — constructively, and in this order:
If the CEO sees the value and adopts the analysis, we are done.
The CEO’s own principals. If the board acts, we are done.
The investors whose capital is at stake.
If no one will act, we are prepared to publish our point of view.
Every step points at the same north star: the value gets created, and captured by the people who own the company.
A chair, a chief executive and an audit chair working with us on the same company read the same panels, the same sources, the same questions. There are no private versions, and no version that flatters.
Facts are verified and locked before any narrative is written. A missing fact fails the build; it is never invented. The method in full.
The fact that you asked is itself held in confidence — from the market, from management, and from anyone else.
Subscription fees only. We take no success fees, no stakes, and no mandate whose outcome we could influence. Terms partly linked to long-term shareholder return are available where a board wants our economics aligned with its owners’.
Existing relationships on a company are disclosed before any engagement on that company begins. What we will not do is tailor the truth to the seat we are speaking to.
Of roughly 20,000 listed companies worldwide, around 10,000 carry the depth of disclosure and coverage our method needs; we prioritise there. If it matters to you, we can read it.
One hour, one live file, on a company you know intimately.
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