Our Insights

In Davos, Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered an address titled “Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path.” He framed the moment as a break from old assumptions and a call for “middle powers” to stop performing comforting narratives. In this perspective, we share our read of the speech’s core moves and what they imply for Canadian business and investment leaders as Canada competes in a more transactional world.

AI is already inside executive work. The real question is whether you can govern AI agents to perform the Chief of Staff function: preparation, decision documentation, follow-through, and audit-ready control.

Targeted root cause analysis and reliability engineering gave leadership a practical plan to cut electrical outages, protect throughput, and standardize reliability practices across priority terminals.

Davos 2026 put dialogue back at the center. This perspective is not a recap, but a delivery lens on what the theme implies for leaders who need decisions, not just alignment.

A global payments provider clarified where to win and equipped regional teams with sharper narratives, repeatable sales plays, and a portfolio-level growth plan they could execute consistently.

Focused diagnostics and structured communication gave leaders a real picture of employee sentiment after a major company restructure

Canadian investors are already raising the bar on climate disclosure. For Alberta oil and gas exposure, the winning move is to treat financed emissions and scenario analysis as a repeatable decision system, not an ESG appendix.

Alberta Wallet adoption is a trust and conversion problem, not a feature problem. Digital identity succeeds when citizens trust it, understand it, and get clear value from using it. Adoption comes from journey redesign, visible privacy and security controls, product governance, and conversion measurement leaders can manage.

Targeted coaching, challenger analysis, and tight governance helped a UK bank build its own climate scenario model in one quarter.

Targeted vertical sales campaigns and live coaching so embedded finance sellers could speak to client realities, not just product features.

Banks can capture real productivity gains with AI, but only when workflows and controls are redesigned together. The path is audit-ready workflow change, clear model risk boundaries, and metrics that prove throughput and quality.

AI governance fails when it is a set of principles without accountability, control points, and monitoring. What works is board-ready ownership, reusable control patterns, and evidence trails that hold under scrutiny.

The client designed a bank-grade sponsor-bank proposition and operating model so bank executives could greenlight embedded finance with clear ownership, controls, and economics.

Private capital teams are seeing AI everywhere in decks, but few claims survive evidence testing. This piece lays out a 30-day diligence sprint to validate data rights, real model advantage, adoption feasibility, and delivery economics.

Strathen Group built a private, IPS-aligned agent that turns market themes into candidates, candidates into valuations, and valuations into risk-approved actions with explainable rationales.

Targeted market research and competitive analysis shaped a go-to-market roadmap and accelerated product launch. The incubator later supported more than 1,500 newborn babies in a humanitarian crisis.

Hospitals and health systems cannot meet demand with heroic effort. The path forward is to manage flow as a system, with daily governance that makes constraints visible, decisions fast, and performance predictable.

Pay-by-bank is becoming mainstream, but collections and bill pay are where it can reliably deliver substantial net savings. The reason is simple: the customer intent is high, the value is clear, and the operating model can be engineered for predictable outcomes.

Many diligence processes confirm the story instead of testing it. Leaders need a structured way to validate value drivers, surface execution constraints, and identify integration readiness gaps before they become surprises.

A structured go to market model turned Pay by Bank from a stalled idea into a governed, measurable path from design to pilot to scalable launch.

Many embedded finance product teams can ship a beta. Fewer can earn distribution, align stakeholders, and scale to general availability with repeatable revenue and controlled risk.

A UK water utility replaced siloed planning with a single integrated plan, clear stage gates, and a planning system that restored forecast credibility and regulatory confidence.

Competitive intelligence and synergy-based cost modeling pinpointed advantaged zones and project sizes, providing client a real bidding edge.

For workers and partners, payout experience is the product. Leaders can improve retention and liquidity by redesigning the payout journey end to end, including promise, choices, messaging, and controls.

Value creation fails when the thesis stays conceptual. Leaders need a practical plan, clear owners, and a governance cadence management teams can run from day one.

Government does not need more charts. It needs decision-grade data products tied to real policy and operational cycles, with clear ownership, governance, and adoption designed in.

IAP helped an Oman-based upstream operator raise production on existing infrastructure by cutting avoidable downtime and putting field work, logistics, and maintenance onto one plan.

A Norway offshore operator linked condition monitoring, flow assurance, VR, and handheld tools into predictive workflows that improved safety, reduced deferments, and eased POB pressure.

Operators restore power fastest when incident command is disciplined, communications are consistent, and learning loops are real. Technology helps, but only after the operating model is redesigned around performance and accountability.

A climate scenario model gave the firm and its clients asset-level insight into physical and transition risk, emissions paths to 2050, and the credibility of corporate climate targets.

When Net Operating Income (NOI) improvement becomes a cost exercise, service slips, churn rises, and the gains reverse. Leaders need a revenue, expense, and service plan that is measurable, defensible, and operationally executable.

Most real estate portfolios run on local habits. Scaling performance requires leasing, maintenance, and vendors to operate as one system, with clear standards, metrics, and accountability that site teams can actually run.

When capex planning is reactive, portfolios become harder to finance, harder to operate, and harder to defend. Leaders need a clear view of asset health, a funding logic they can explain, and a governance cadence that ties capex to NOI and risk reduction.

Retail leaders are judged on experience and profitability. The winners align customer promise, inventory, and cost-to-serve with an operating system teams can run every day.

Promotions often become a reflex. Leaders need guardrails that protect margin while still learning what drives demand, retention, and long-term customer value.

When inventory is wrong, everything downstream breaks: availability, replenishment, fulfillment, and customer trust. The fix is not more reporting. It is a reliability discipline stores can run without added burden.

Digital tools do not fix broken workflows. Leaders need to remove friction first, then automate what is stable and safe, with clear standards and ownership.

When capacity is managed informally, access suffers and costs rise. The path forward is a practical planning and execution model that links demand, staffing, scheduling templates, and daily performance management.

A UK water utility replaced sprawling, inconsistent reports with a governed reporting system that gave leaders a short, reliable view of performance and emerging risks.

The client built a tiered, end-to-end sales enablement system so sellers could qualify harder, pitch faster, and run executive-grade pursuits with consistent narratives, commercials, and ownership clarity.

A global payments provider and a gift card platform aligned internal teams so 529 gifts could be funded by cards and digital wallets instead of checks alone.

When reporting is inconsistent, buyers assume risk. Leaders need a decision-grade performance story with clean KPI definitions, traceability, and a narrative that holds up in diligence.

A Norway offshore operator built a value led digital roadmap that connects multi-field operations, onshore collaboration, and real-time data into one defendable plan.

A Norway offshore operator moved from fragmented systems and dashboards to a single data hub and governed self-serve analytics layer for operations and engineering.

A Norway offshore operator introduced a 90/30/7 planning rhythm with stage gates and data hub links to coordinate work across fields and improve shutdown and resource discipline.

A UK energy operator scaled product squads with clean Scrum discipline, integrated discovery, and a portfolio cadence that gave leaders real visibility into work.

A tailored coaching program gave terminal operators a shared RCA language, clearer decision rights, and a toolkit to drive reliability work without external dependence.

A centralized reservation system and tighter controls helped a Middle East upstream operator cut lodging costs and bring real discipline to camp safety and planning.

A UK water utility moved from scattered trackers to a single benefits system that tied initiative delivery, evidence, and finance sign off into one disciplined rhythm.

Asset-level climate scenarios and target-realism analysis gave UK financial institutions a basis to realign portfolios, manage financed emissions, and decide where to invest, divest, or engage.

Cross-sector research and scorecards showed world’s leading energy insights provider where to expand and how to create value in aviation, marine, and rail transport sectors.

An organization-wide spans and layers review provided a North Sea operator a clearer way to realign roles, teams, and decision rights with an evolving net-zero portfolio.

Cross-sector research and a pragmatic cyber model showed how utilities can use IoT devices to drive Circular Economy while keeping critical grid devices secure.

For Canadian energy leaders, methane and emissions reporting is no longer a compliance workstream that sits in sustainability. It is becoming a performance system that shapes how assets are operated, maintained, audited, and improved.

Digital and AI can reduce wait times and rework, but citizens do not experience “transformation.” They experience trust or frustration. The goal is modernization that improves outcomes while protecting accessibility, equity, and legitimacy.

Public agencies are under pressure to “do AI.” The risk is buying tools that demo well, then stall in delivery, governance, and adoption. The answer is outcomes-first procurement with portability, evidence trails, and release-by-release controls built in.

Public procurement teams want to drive participation outcomes and still run fair, competitive processes. The answer is a verification-backed scoring and reporting model that is transparent, defensible, and simple enough to operate.

When government cannot hire, decide, and deliver at pace, outcomes stall and staff burn out. Throughput improves through role clarity, decision rights, streamlined approvals, and practical flow measures tied to delivery.

Homelessness response is judged in outcomes people can feel: time to placement, stability after placement, and fewer returns to crisis. Even with real constraints like housing supply, delivery systems determine whether resources translate into durable exits from homelessness.

Alberta has a real opportunity to attract data centre investment, but demand is no longer the constraint. Power, interconnection certainty, land readiness, permitting throughput, and credible partnership structures now decide who wins.

Venture capital firms already have strong instincts and networks. The question is whether you can encode your thesis and signals into a governed screener that produces faster, more explainable shortlists.

A clear view on where chat helps, where it hurts, and what to do instead.

A supervised operator co-pilot can turn alarms, SOPs, and incident history into clear next steps, without bypassing safety systems or operator judgment.

How a supervised permitting co-pilot can speed decisions without cutting corners.

How a supervised clinical co-pilot can cut admin load without crossing the line on care.

How a marketplace co-pilot can tune supply, demand, and incentives without breaking trust.