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Values

What We Hold Ourselves To

Five commitments that decide how we behave when an engagement, a client or a deadline pushes the other way.

Our five core values

Compliance without exception

A consultation that has not cleared compliance does not happen, whatever it is worth.

Exceptions are how compliance frameworks fail. Not through a decision to abandon the framework, but through a sequence of individually reasonable accommodations: the urgent brief, the important client, the expert who is nearly clear. We do not make those accommodations, and we would rather lose the engagement than hold a record we could not show a regulator or an investment committee.

What this means in practice

  • Declarations and consent are completed per engagement, never carried over from a previous one
  • A moderator ends a consultation that approaches a boundary, and the client is not charged
  • Compliance records are append-only and exportable, so the framework is auditable rather than asserted

Depth over volume

We would rather return a short shortlist of experts who can answer the question than a long one of experts adjacent to it.

Volume is easy to produce and easy to sell. It is also how research teams end up spending their scarcest resource — senior attention — filtering profiles. We assess relevance before a candidate reaches a shortlist, and we decline briefs where we cannot source properly rather than sending the nearest available match.

What this means in practice

  • A research associate tests currency and depth in conversation before shortlisting anyone
  • Candidates who are adjacent rather than central are declined with an explanation
  • We say when we cannot source to a brief, rather than substituting a weaker match

Africa-first, not Africa-also

The network is designed for African markets rather than adapted to them.

A network built for other regions and extended to Africa inherits assumptions that do not hold here: that a single regional expert can speak across borders, that the working language is English, that regulatory context is broadly comparable between neighbouring markets. Our sourcing, our coverage model and our language support are built from the opposite premise.

What this means in practice

  • Sourcing is organised country by country, not by a single continental desk
  • Consultations are supported in English, French, Portuguese and Arabic
  • Coverage depth is stated openly, so clients know where we are strongest before they commission

Transparency in pricing and process

The published price is the price, and the process is the one we describe.

Opaque pricing transfers value from the client who negotiates least well. It also makes budgeting for research harder than it needs to be. We publish our rates, we do not charge for the things other networks treat as add-ons, and we describe our process in enough detail that a prospective client can hold us to it.

What this means in practice

  • Rates are published, not quoted per account
  • No platform fees, seat licences or transcript charges
  • Turnaround commitments are stated up front and reported against

Respect for expert independence

Experts decide what they will discuss, and we protect that decision.

An expert network that pressures experts towards the edge of what they may say is not a research business; it is a liability being accumulated on someone else's behalf. Experts set their own rate, accept or decline each engagement, and are supported rather than second-guessed when they decline a question. Their identity stays with the engaging client.

What this means in practice

  • Experts set their own rate and receive it in full
  • Declining a question or ending a call carries no penalty
  • Expert identity is disclosed only to the engaging client, never published

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Hold Us to It

Submit a brief and judge the standard against the process we describe.

Submit a BriefRead Our Compliance Framework