Practice Areas

From big-picture strategy to implementation, Tilman & Company offers an integrated suite of services designed to help clients chart a bold path forward — aligning vision, strategy, risk, organization, communication, and culture to succeed in a highly complex environment.

Strategic Infrastructure for the 21st Century

The strategic infrastructure of an organization embodies its vision, value proposition, decision-making framework, operational excellence, core capabilities and corporate culture.

When executives and boards of directors set out to assess and adapt their organization to the changing environment, a distinct value chain emerges. Along its continuum, Tilman & Company offers clients comprehensive advice, solutions, tools, and frameworks for advancing the corporate vision and strategy, fostering organizational alignment, and developing a common language and culture integral to long-term success.

Distinct in our approach, we view corporate strategy through the lens of risk, creating a new way of analyzing business models, the competitive landscape, evolving risks, and the opportunity set facing our clients.

Whether we are engaged for a comprehensive strategic assignment or to address a specific client need, we bring a unique perspective and creative thinking to every project. Having successfully helped our clients at every level of the value chain, our integrated team delivers tangible and lasting results.

Corporate Strategy

Sound corporate strategy is the ultimate realization of the vision, values and philosophy of a firm’s executives and its board. To foster competitiveness and superior economic performance, an organization’s business model must be aligned with its strategic vision, desired risk exposures, and culture.

Adapting to the Ever-Changing “New Normal” – Tilman & Company helps leadership teams shape and articulate their strategy and build their strategic infrastructure: from big picture thinking to processes, capabilities, and implementation. In crafting strategy and building frameworks, we transform boardrooms into state-of-the-art cockpits equipped with essential knowledge, information and tools. Our proprietary approach integrates competitive strategy, broad systemic knowledge, and risk intelligence.

  • Situational Awareness and Systemic Knowledge — Identifying trends, threats and opportunities within the institution and across the economic and competitive landscape
  • Strategic Vision and Action Plans — Articulating the vision for relevance and economic value creation and crafting the value proposition for different stakeholders. Ensuring alignment with external realities and trends
  • Dashboards — Developing performance metrics and measures of success custom-tailored to the firm’s business model and designing risk dashboards conducive to effective decision making and governance
  • Levers, Communication and Culture — Aligning the organization around vision and values, building a common language and utilizing the appropriate channels to communicate and affect change

In the process, the desired role of risk in the business model—and its far-reaching implications for strategy, risk management, organizational design, and communication—are formulated. Greater relevance, strong performance, better decision making, and effective governance follow as a result.

Risk Advisory

Risk intelligence is vital for corporate survival, success and relevance. Tilman & Company equips boards and executives with strategies, analytical frameworks and forward-looking tools to facilitate new ways of seeing. Encouraging organizations to speak a common risk language enables them to think holistically about risk, uncertainty and opportunity.

New Ways of Seeing

Risk intelligence represents both a strategic imperative and a powerful adaptive advantage. Seeing how trends and environments impact strategy when viewed through this new lens enables organizations to conceptualize the “the future that has already happened.” This fosters effective communication and institutional change, empowering sustainable growth, profitability, and relevance.

  • From Risk Management to Risk Intelligence — Helping organizations reposition risk management from a policing function to a strategic resource central to decision making
  • Leveraging Data Intelligence — Utilizing advanced tools and systems to translate vast amounts of data into actionable information
  • Extracting Value from Risk — Applying risk intelligence to competitive strategy, new products and services, resource allocation, cost optimization and identification of new opportunities
  • Sustainable Performance through Crisis Management — Enabling effective crisis management through forward-looking tools, actions, and strategic communication plans

We help organizations evolve—by integrating forward-looking and ongoing risk intelligence with strategic planning, new business development, M&A and governance—to proactively utilize risk in creating value, strengthening relevance, and improving competitiveness.

Organizational Strategy

Successful adaptation is hard work. For groups to respond favorably to change, it is crucial to plan effectively and implement a well-designed organizational strategy. We help clients design the most direct route to aligning their organizations around strategic objectives – while creating a culture poised for high performance.

Aligning Human Capital

Profiting from insights gained through competitive strategy and risk intelligence requires dynamism and continuous adaptation of corporate vision and strategy. From boardroom decisions to shop floor practices, large shifts in organizational processes and culture must be carefully architected, governed and implemented. Leveraging “in-the-trenches’ experience across sectors and geographies, we guide firms in breaking down silos, building alignment and facilitating effective implementation.

  • Organizational Advisory — Rigorous analysis of culture, processes, people and technology to design the roadmap leading organizations to realize their full potential
  • Change Management Program Development — Guiding organizations in taking advantage of changing conditions through clear leadership and grass-roots action
  • Executive Facilitation — Structuring events, meetings and off-sites to craft effective agendas and engage teams around shared goals and open communications
  • High Performance Team Development — Utilizing best practices for teams in transition, helping them coalesce and take a leadership position in driving successful initiatives and operations

Our approach builds enduring organizations that leverage the full power of human capital by aligning people, processes, risk, technology and culture around the corporate vision and values.improving competitiveness.

Strategic Communications

Consistent internal and external communications are crucial to shaping a powerful brand, consolidating stakeholder expectations, furthering objectives, and securing buy-in for key initiatives. Integrating strategic communication across core disciplines gives resonance to the corporate vision and builds a strong culture.

Speaking with One Voice

Strategic communications begin with a common language. Throughout our engagements — from vision to realization — we work with clients to craft key messages that resonate with all relevant stakeholders.

  • Strategy Alignment — Decoding corporate culture through language and developing messages to advance the strategy, empower internal champions, and foster favorable external perceptions
  • Internal Brand Development — Creating key top-line corporate messages so that all stakeholder touchpoints provide consistency and reinforcement of mission, vision and values
  • External Brand Positioning — Guiding the alignment of marketing, public relations and sales to the value proposition through the eyes of their constituencies
  • Crisis Communications — Proactively planning for a range of “what-if” scenarios, assessing each key initiative with an eye toward success, points of friction, and potential reputational risks

Positioning strategic communications as the backbone of the corporate value chain, rather than as a distinct discipline, furthers the corporate vision, enhancing alignment and ensuring all stakeholders (and the broader public) understand and favorably view the firm’s value proposition, strategy, and human capital.

View Branding Case Studies

Predictive Analytics & Data Intelligence

Looking beyond the numbers to capitalize on nascent trends, interdependencies and emerging opportunities is critical to achieving superior economic performance. Predictive analytics is a core strategic discipline informing risk intelligence, competitive intelligence, and business intelligence — key drivers of effective corporate strategy.

From Data to Insight and Action

Tilman & Company’ predictive analytics team works closely with the firm’s strategy, risk advisory, and organizational practices to analyze and illuminate large and complex datasets, revealing important trends and turning data into insight conducive to effective decision making and governance. Some of our recent predictive analytics assignments focused on:

  • Characteristics and Drivers of Corporate Defaults — Assessing the drivers of corporate defaults and their implications to risk management, risk-based pricing, and asset allocation
  • Performance Analysis of Alternative Asset Classes — Understanding risk/return characteristics of investment processes, new product design, and AUM growth strategy
  • Estimation of Economic Capital — Unifying multiple probability distributions corresponding to different risk types using disparate methodologies and systems to create a holistic risk picture and economic capital profile of the organization
  • Decision Support in Customer Relationship Management — Statistically analyzing the diverse issues at the intersection of customer relationship management and credit risk management

We employ advanced statistical models and expert judgment in creating a 360° view on the best possible models for a given problem or strategic need.

Board Advisory

Risk intelligence provides a powerful new paradigm for corporate governance. When boards of directors work in partnership with leadership teams to determine their organization’s “true north,” sustainable long-term growth, environment of inspiration, and enhanced brand equity follow.

Ask Better Questions™

By transforming boardrooms into state-of-the-art cockpits equipped with essential knowledge, information and tools, we help boards of directors set the right course for their organizations—guiding them through changing environments and continually redefining the desired role of risk in the business model:

  • Capitalize on the “Future That Already Happened” — Using broad systemic knowledge and risk intelligence to evaluate dominant economic and competitive trends that impact strategy and risk taking
  • Evolve the Value Proposition — Helping boards and executive teams collaborate on reshaping and evolving the firm’s value proposition and business model as external environments change
  • Align Growth, Risk, and Culture — Dynamically managing the firm-wide portfolio of risks to meet growth objectives, mitigate threats, and deliver lasting economic performance
  • Protect and Strengthen the Brand — Ensuring directors, executives, and employees act in concert, fully aligned with the corporate vision and values – for the benefit of all stakeholders and society.

Risk-intelligent corporate governance creates new ways of thinking about strategy – illuminating strengths and risks within the business model to help navigate emerging trends and opportunities while defending against surprises and financial ruin. When boards of directors ask the right questions about the firm’s strategy and risks – and act accordingly – they fulfill their fiduciary duty and ensure lasting value creation.