Your strategy is only as strong as the dependencies behind it.
Know What Puts Your Value Thesis at Risk
High-stakes investments and initiatives often depend on critical people and institutions behaving in particular ways. Those dependencies are rarely tested with the same rigor as financial, commercial and operational risks.
ThroughSpan closes that gap.
ThroughSpan identifies critical dependencies in the value thesis, independently tests whether they are likely to hold, and quantifies the value at risk when they don't.
An acquisition may require key executives to stay, customers to renew and regulators to approve. A capital project may depend on elected officials, regulators and communities. A transformation may require leaders to make difficult decisions and employees to adopt new ways of working.
Inside the Enterprise
Employees
Executives
Board members
Owners
Outside the Enterprise
Customers
Suppliers
Regulators
Elected Officials
Communities
Partners
Public & Media
What contribution does the value thesis require?
How much leverage does that party have over value realization?
How likely is the required contribution to occur?
ThroughSpan tests what the value thesis requires from each critical party.
ThroughSpan Value Realization System™
ThroughSpan connects the actions of critical people and institutions directly to the economics of the value thesis—revealing where value realization is most at risk and why. Our assessments combine senior judgment, quantitative analysis and AI-enabled evidence synthesis to test critical contributions and quantify their potential impact on value.
1. Define the Value Thesis
Identify the sources and components of expected value.
2. Identify Critical Dependencies
Determine whose actions, decisions, consent or acceptance each source of value requires.
3. Measure Stakeholder Leverage Index (SLI)
Assess structural ability to affect the relevant source of value through Control, Criticality and Replacement Difficulty.
5. Quantify Value at Risk
Map failure pathways back to the economics.
4. Assess Stakeholder Contribution Risk (SCR)
Independently assess the risk that each required contribution will not occur.
6. Reduce the Risk
Target interventions where the greatest economic value is at risk.
Why ThroughSpan?
“For twenty years I ran the firm companies called when consequential business outcomes depended on the actions of critical people and institutions—regulators, elected officials, communities, customers and others with real leverage over the outcome. We worked across industries and issues, including some of the country's most challenging energy siting and permitting projects.
“For ten years before that I taught and applied statistics and machine learning at Kellogg to model how people actually behave.
“ThroughSpan is what happens when you aim the second discipline at the first problem.”
Eric Sorenson, Founding Partner
ThroughSpan is most valuable when realizing significant value requires specific actions, decisions or support from critical people and institutions.
M & A
PE Investment & Portfolio Value Creation
Major Capital & Infrastructure Projects
Market Entry & Expansion
Enterprise & AI Transformation
Restructuring
$1B
Enterprise value
40%
Project timeline reduction
$2B
Asset base at stake
Leadership
Eric Sorenson & Charlie WebsterWe Kept Seeing the Same Blind Spot.
Across transactions, growth strategies, major projects and operating transformations, organizations rigorously analyzed the financial and operational case—but often left critical dependencies on customers, executives, regulators, communities and other institutions largely untested.
ThroughSpan was built to bring discipline and measurement to that missing class of value risk.
Through
Understanding how value is expected to be created—from the economics of the thesis through the dependencies required to realize it.
Span
Connecting the people and institutions inside and outside the enterprise whose actions determine whether that value materializes.
Eric Sorenson
Partner
EricS@ThroughSpan.com
Eric Sorenson founded, built and led Strategies 360 into one of the most influential marketing and public affairs firms in the Western U.S., with 22 offices across 12 western states and DC, and 20%+ CAGR over 15 years. Prior to that he built Chicago-based Marketing 360 into a global market strategy firm. He was a marketing professor at the Kellogg Business School at Northwestern University for eight years and led the Center for Retail Management at Kellogg, pioneering early applications of machine learning to marketing. Eric has an MBA from Northwestern and BA in economics from Stanford.
Charlie Webster
Partner
CharlieW@ThroughSpan.com
Charlie Webster has a 30-year career in finance, operations, supply chain and executive management in the med-tech, semiconductor and energy industries. Most recently Charlie was EVP at Novanta, a $1B revenue global med-tech firm where he established and led the Novanta Growth System, managed global supply chain, and oversaw China operations. Charlie has been CFO of public and private companies. He also co-founded an energy consulting firm that was subsequently sold to private investors. Charlie has an MPA from Harvard and BA from Stanford.
When significant value rests on the actions of critical people and institutions, ThroughSpan makes the resulting risk visible, measurable and manageable.
Contact us to discuss your value thesis.
