The methods the desk
runs on mandate.
These are the methods the desk runs on mandate. We publish them so a peer can audit us. Read alongside the journal, cite them when they are used, retire them when they are superseded.
Read in the same
order every time.
The five frameworks below are grouped under three editorials. The order is the order a retained mandate reads them in.
The frameworks a desk runs before it acts. Read first, before any structure is built or any policy is signed.
The Season Diagnostic
Diagnose
A two-to-three week read of the family book that produces a single document the principal and the desk can both pick up a year later and still understand. We map what is held, how it is held, where the policy and the practice diverge, and what the next season needs from the office.
Read a frameworkThe frameworks that produce the written artefacts a principal and a committee can sign. Read second, once the diagnostic has set the brief.
The Mandate Brief
Design & Structure
A short reference document the principal and the desk agree on before any policy is signed. It captures the decisions that everything else hangs off: the operating model, the decision rights, the buckets, the bands, and the cadence. Once signed, it is the working version the office refers back to.
Read a frameworkThe IC Pack, in Twelve Pages
Design & Structure
A committee pack kept to twelve pages, every cycle. One page for the family map, one for the season, two for the cash and the FX, three for the lines in motion, two for the managers and counterparties under review, two for the policy changes on the table, and one for the decisions the committee has to make.
Twelve pages, page by page on the detail surface: the family map, the cash and the FX, the lines in motion, the managers under review, the policy changes on the table. The committee reads the pack, not the deck. A redacted sample is open at the close.
Read a frameworkThe frameworks that keep the programme honest between mandates. Read third, once the structure is in place and the desk is running.
The Treasury Corridor Map
Operate & Oversee
A two-by-two map of the household treasury against the office treasury, with currency corridors, hedges, and trigger thresholds drawn on top. Used to write and to defend the treasury policy, and to keep cash, FX, and short-dated credit decisions inside one frame.
Seven rooms on the detail surface: jurisdictions, currencies, custodian-by-jurisdiction placement, FX exposure windows, the corridor bands, the operating posture inside the corridor, and the breach protocol. Pairs with the Treasury Policy, written against the same rooms.
Read a frameworkThe Programme Governance Grid
Operate & Oversee
A six-cell grid that pins the decisions on a multi-year programme to the people who own them. Three rows across the principal, the committee, the desk, and the advisors, and two columns across strategy, structure, and operating cadence. Used to keep a programme legible from year one to year five.
Read a frameworkRead alongside
the journal.
Not investment advice. The library is editorial discipline, not personalised financial or trading advice.
The frameworks are written to be cited when they are used. On a retained mandate each framework is named in the mandate brief, then read alongside the journal so the work that flows from it is auditable. The desk treats citation as a discipline rather than a courtesy.
The library is also written to be retired when superseded. A framework that no longer reflects the desk's method is marked as such, with the date and the reason. The principle is plain: a published method the desk no longer follows is worse than one that was never published.
The same discipline applies to the schematics on each framework page. A schematic that no longer matches the desk's working document is wrong, not aspirational. We keep the editorial bar higher than the marketing bar.
See a framework
applied to a mandate.
The sample surface is the public opening of an engagement deliverable, written off the Treasury Corridor Map framework. The cover, the table of contents, the first section, and the redaction blocks for the remaining sections.
If a framework above
matches the season,
We maintain a small number of retained mandates and open new mandates selectively. Write to the private office. We reply with care, and without obligation.
For how the framework is run on a mandate, see the practice.