Feasibility, stakeholder maps, ESG, and corporate governance — the policy work that happens at the boundary of a firm and the public it answers to.
The Business Route is for members who want to understand where firms make policy — through disclosures, capital allocation, and the slow accumulation of standards that become de‑facto law.
You will work through ESG, corporate governance, and the policy / market interface as practitioners actually use them: not as acronyms to memorise, but as tools that can be wielded well, badly, or cynically. Your capstone is a real‑world case study with a stakeholder map an analyst could reuse.
Async readings, weekly drops, and three advisor sessions across the cohort. Modules build toward the capstone — there is no busywork, and there is no skipping.
GRI, ISSB, TCFD, and SASB — what each actually requires and where they diverge. How ratings agencies disagree, and why that matters. Reading a sustainability report against its own materiality matrix.
Board composition, fiduciary duty, and the rise of stewardship codes. Reading a 10‑K, an annual report, and a proxy filing for the same firm without losing the thread.
Carbon pricing, content rules, local‑content mandates, and the political economy of each. Why a "just transition" is mostly a sequencing problem dressed up as a values problem.
A real firm or sector. A documented stakeholder map. A one‑page executive summary that a director could read in two minutes. Eight to twelve pages backing it up.
Every route ends in one Capstone with your name on it — published, archived, and citable. No certificate without it.
Single or co‑authored case study, with a one‑page executive summary and a stakeholder map.
Half the work is finding the right metric. The other half is admitting it isn’t the one in the press release.
A handful of recent capstones from the Business Route — to give you a sense of the scope and shape we expect, not to tell you what to write.
No route is harder than another — they reward different temperaments. Here is who tends to thrive in Business, and who is probably better served elsewhere.
Every member is paired with a senior advisor. The names below are representative of the Business Route advisor bench across recent cohorts.
15+ years across regional policy. Reads two drafts and runs a 60‑minute session with each advisee.
Currently serving in government, an NGO, or a research institute. Brings a live sense of what is plausible this year.
Blinded review of your draft, paired by the programme team. You will be a peer reviewer for someone in turn — that is part of the work.
↗ The full advisor bench is listed on the Team page.
If your question is not here, write to us. We read everything.
Email us ▸No. We assume you can read English. We will teach you to read a financial statement well enough to pick the case apart.
Generally no — conflict of interest, and your case will be more interesting on a firm you can be honest about. We help with picking.
Some. Others use it to go into regulation, journalism, or advocacy. Reading firms well is a transferable skill.
Sometimes, where access exists in our network. Mostly we work from public filings — which is what professional analysts mostly do.
Members usually arrive certain about one route and leave curious about the next. Each route is sixteen weeks; some fellows have done two over consecutive cohorts.
Express interest for the next cohort. We open intakes four times a year and you can roll your application forward at any time — no penalty, no fee.