Multiple books titled 'The Standard Model for Business' with colorful map-like designs on the covers, arranged overlapping on a black background.

See the whole system.
Lead the whole business.

Business only feels like chaos because no one ever gave you the map. Whether you're building a company, rising toward leadership, or running one today, The Standard Model for Business shows how the whole enterprise fits together.

Explore the model
Get the free summary
Take the free assessment

  • "As someone who works in a specialist function, looking to grow a business, I found this wonderfully insightful. It gave me comfort about the parts of business I know well and clearly identified, and plugged the gaps. A great read for anyone who wants to understand how it all fits together. Thank you."

    —Adam Wesbroom, Capital Group

One framework. The whole enterprise. Whatever stage you're at.

Choose your starting point

Implement

Enterprise Review

For executive teams who sense things are misaligned but can't name where. A full diagnostic of your organisation against all five stages and twenty functions — gaps identified, prioritised, and mapped to what to fix first.

Experience

Standard Model eXperience

For leadership teams and high-potentials. A five-day simulation where you run, scale and govern a company end-to-end, and feel how the functions connect before the stakes are real.

Assess

Standard Model Assessment

For organisations that want a structured read on where they stand today and a ranked list of priorities.

Learn

Academy

For leaders building the breadth to think like a CEO, not just a specialist. Free and premium courses on every function.

Diagnose

Take the free assessment

Not sure where to start? Answer a few questions and get a tailored read on your biggest structural gaps in under ten minutes. Free.

Apply the model
Take the free assessment

Why generalists win:

The data backs the generalist. A Harvard Business Review study of 17,000 CEOs found over 90% rose through broad general-management backgrounds, not narrow specialisms. When organisations empower generalist thinking, they're far more likely to grow revenue and report a thriving culture.

The Standard Model is how you build that breadth — deliberately, not by a decade of trial and error.

See the whole business. Lead it on purpose.

A system-level framework with practical diagnostics, simulation and training that turns organisational complexity into clarity, whether you're building, scaling, or running the enterprise.

What you get:

  • Clarity on the gaps that matter: where strategy, execution, governance and assurance pull apart

  • A shared language your whole leadership team and board can actually use

  • Early warning: capability gaps named before they become performance or risk failures

  • A way to act on it: through diagnostics, simulation and structured learning, not theory

Apply the model
Take the free assessment

The Model

A colorful infographic displaying a process flow with each step in a colored box. The steps are labeled 'Start', 'Stabilise', 'Grow', and 'Assure', with subtopics under each. The boxes include topics such as Product Development, Business Development, Communications, Research & Development, Risk Management, Customer Service, Operations, Legal, Partnerships, Ethics & Compliance, Procurement, Administration, Human Resources, Information Technology, Logistics, and Internal Audit. The design emphasizes a structured approach to organizational processes and management, with each section color-coded and interconnected.
Explore the model

Modern organisations are complex systems, yet most professionals are trained inside functions, not across the enterprise.

The Standard Model for Business was developed to close that gap, providing a unified architecture for how companies are built, scaled and governed.

Take the free assessment

The author

A professional man with gray hair and glasses, wearing a dark pinstripe suit and a light blue shirt, looking directly at the camera.

Edward Rowe

Early in his career at Grant Thornton, Edward sat in meetings quietly writing down acronyms he didn't recognise, determined to work out how business actually fit together. Two decades later, across professional services, industry, and fifteen years inside the sovereign wealth and private equity world, he had his answer.

His career has centred on governance, risk and assurance at the highest levels, with experience spanning aerospace, advanced manufacturing, energy, technology, financial services and healthcare — building the internal functions that keep large, complex organisations accountable and in control.

The pattern was always the same: brilliant professionals running businesses no one had ever taught them to see whole. The Standard Model for Business is his answer; the map he wishes someone had handed him on day one.

Explore the model
Get the book

Get in touch

Tell us where your organisation is today and what you're trying to solve. We'll reply with an honest view on whether the Standard Model fits, and where to begin.