PLATEAU
STRATEGY
Capital Governance
And yet capital continues to flow toward the initiatives that argue best rather than reflect the board's strategic priorities. The gap between projected and realized returns widens quietly. Technology spend scales without a corresponding increase in enterprise value.
This is not a controls failure. It is a structural failure.
The business case is on a shelf. The vendor is winning. The board is asking questions nobody can answer.
Nobody In The Room Is Accountable To The Business Case...Until Now.
Every bad investment had a great ROI.
The CFO who sees this clearly leads the next five years. The one who doesn't will spend them explaining the last five.
THE PROBLEM
Why This Keeps Happening:
It has a name: ROI Theater — the system that rewards the best argument over the best outcome, every time. Vendors, internal champions, and advisors all play a role. The CFO inherits the consequences.
The CFOs who can answer these questions walk into every room ready.
The ones who can't are one board meeting away from losing the seat.
The board is already asking these questions. Unprepared CFOs won't answer them twice.
When an initiative misses its projections, does capital move — or do explanations?
When a capital request lands on your desk, does the best business case win?
2.
1.
3.
4.
Does your capital follow your strategy — or does it follow the strongest business case regardless of strategic fit?
5.
When a major technology or transformation investment is proposed, who in the room has no career interest in the answer — and the firsthand experience to know where the risk is actually hiding?
Right now, how much capital is committed to initiatives that will not move the enterprise forward — and what is that costing you in missed opportunities?
ROI THEATER
It has a name: ROI Theater — the system that funds the best argument, not the best outcome. PMOs track it. Vendors exploit it. CFOs inherit it. P² ends it.
70%
of transformations fail to meet their objectives
70%
of digital transformations fail — only 30% succeed (study of 895 programs)
52%
of digital initiatives fail to meet or exceed business outcome targets
PMOs have been running programs for 20 years. The numbers haven't moved.
METHODOLOGY AND THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
ROI Is The Wrong Instrument.
Traditional ROI
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Project payback period
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Point-in-time calculation
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Technical debt ignored
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Backward-looking
Capital Balance Sheet™
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Enterprise value creation
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Ongoing portfolio management
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Technical debt as liability
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Forward and strategic
ROI answers the wrong question.
It tells you if something pays back. It cannot tell you if you're building what the board actually approved.
The Capital Balance Sheet™ tracks what ROI ignores.
It tells you whether the capital is still pointed at the return that justified it.
P² Deploys At Three Moments. Miss Any One And The Capital Is Already At Risk.
Before You Commit
The vendor has modeled this deal. You haven't.
Before you sign, you want someone in the room with no interest in the outcome — and the pattern recognition to know what the proposal isn't saying.
2–4 weeks · Fixed scope
When Something Feels Off
The PMO says green. Your instinct says otherwise. Trust your instinct.
You're 12 months into a transformation and the numbers don't add up. You need a clear-eyed view of current state, a realistic path forward, and a stay/pivot/exit recommendation with evidence.
2–3 weeks · Confidential
When You're Going Live With Less Than You Funded
What got cut to reach go-live didn't disappear. It became the business case you'll fund twice.
You need an honest accounting of what you have, what it's worth, and a Phase 2 framework that doesn't repeat Phase 1.
4–6 weeks · Fixed scope
70% of transformations miss projected ROI within two years
Download Our Capital Balance Sheet Framework
Every engagement is bounded, fixed scope, and ends with a straight answer — including what you may not want to hear.
WHAT INTERVENTION MEANS
WHO THIS IS FOR
Who this is for.
And who it isn't.
P² is not for every organization. It is for the ones where the right answer matters more than the comfortable one.
Our Client
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CFO of a $500M–$3B+ enterprise managing capital across strategy, IT, and transformation
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Capital decisions every quarter involve vendors with strong interests and internal champions with stronger ones
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Tired of funding initiatives that return explanations instead of returns
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Wants someone who has been in this room before and will say what others won't
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Inherited a program they didn't approve and needs to know what they actually own
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Ready to govern capital as a portfolio — not approve it project by project
Not Our Client
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Looking for bodies to staff a project rather than judgment to shape one
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Needs someone to sell a conclusion already reached rather than reach the right one
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Wants a deliverable that satisfies a process rather than governance that actually changes decisions
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Needs a brand name on the cover page more than the right answer on the inside
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Comfortable with capital allocation that explains itself after the fact
the elephant in the room
Your board wants Big 4.
We make sure they earn their fees.
Big 4 firms bring scale, brand, and political cover. They also don't bring P²
What they don't bring is someone in the room whose only interest is whether the answer is right.
We work alongside Big 4 engagements — pressure-testing recommendations, surfacing what the junior team missed, and making sure the partner's slide deck reflects reality before it reaches your board.
Sometimes we're the reason the engagement stays on track. Sometimes we're the reason it doesn't happen.
Either way, you'll know before you commit.
No rotating junior teams. No hand-offs after the sale.
Allan Salek
Strategy & Capital · Principal
Four continents. Multiple capital cycles. Allan has led global transformations as both COO and strategy practice leader — which means he has been on every side of the table: the capital decision, the vendor pitch, and the operational reality that follows. He knows where the ROI disappears, where capital drift starts, and what the plan isn't saying. No interest in the outcome except the right one. That's what P² was built on.
Rich Carlson
Technology Architecture · Data Systems
Former CTO who designed data systems for trading operations where a wrong architecture decision costs money immediately and unambiguously. Rich translates a business case into architecture that can actually be built — and catches the gap between what a vendor proposes and what the design requires.
Bob Carlson
ERP · Process & Implementation
Bob has been hands-on inside transformations at every stage — not observing them, running them. He has seen every ERP implementation promise made and knows exactly where they fail. He brings the process depth and operational detail that turns a realistic plan into an actual one.
THE TEAM
The person who answers
is the person accountable.
Most firms hand you off after the sale. We don't have anyone to hand you off to.
Capital destroyed on your watch doesn't stay on the balance sheet.
It shows up in your compensation review.
Then your contract renewal.
Then your LinkedIn status.
A straight conversation.
If we can help, you'll know in 20 minutes.
Get in Touch
Capital Efficacy · IT Balance Sheet · External Risk
PLATEAU
STRATEGY
Four continents. Multiple capital cycles. We've watched brilliant CFOs get blindsided — by vendors selling certainty, by organizations caught in politics, by leaders advancing careers ahead of the balance sheet. We work with CFOs so they walk into every room ready for the conversation that defines whether they keep the seat.