A Mature Learner: Later Stage Founder Notes

Six months ago, I made a decision that felt equal parts liberating and terrifying: I stepped away from a role I deeply loved, surrounded by teams and people I respected, without a clear plan for what came next. For someone who has spent much of the last 25 years operating inside structured, complex delivery environments, that absence of structure was disquieting... But it was also, as I would come to learn, necessary.

As the months unfolded, I found myself circling back to ideas that had been simmering for years. Ideas that crystallised when I finally committed to writing Countdown to 2100: A Time of Grey Rhinos.

That book wasn’t meant to be a prediction; it was a deliberate act of joining the dots between forces that are already in motion. Climate collapse, AI-driven economic stratification, political fragmentation, and the slow unravelling of globalism—these are not abstract possibilities. They are present realities that will intensify over the decades ahead.

In writing that book, I kept returning to one truth: corporations sit at the centre of these converging risks. Not really governments, not NGOs, not well-intentioned academic papers. Corporations. The multinationals, the regional anchors, the supply chain lynchpins, the financial engines of our economies. If systemic risks are to be confronted, corporations will either be the actors or the casualties. They have the capital, the reach, the power, and the platforms to make measurable, scalable decisions. The question is whether they will. Equally, can our economic systems let them?

From observation to action

Writing Countdown to 2100 was, in some ways, a call to myself. It was no longer enough to observe, analyse, and publish. If I genuinely believed that systemic risks require new modes of governance, then I felt that I had to act. I couldn’t ask others to be braver while I sat comfortably within my own career. That was the seed of Beyond Countdown Limited (BCL).

I began by mapping the problem that boards face today: not a lack of data, but a lack of synthesis. Point solutions abound: carbon ledgers, whistleblowing hotlines, cybersecurity drills. Yet boards still struggle to answer a simple question: Are we truly prepared for the convergence of systemic risks?

The answer, too often, is a qualified shrug. ESG reports are compiled. Annual compliance reviews are filed. But actual readiness—the ability to rehearse, simulate, and actively prepare for multi-vector disruptions—is missing. Boards remain trapped in a cycle of declarations rather than actions, perpetually focused on quarterly ROI metrics while kicking long-term risks into the future.

So I reversed the framing. Instead of asking what would improve short-term compliance, I asked: What would it take to create a governance model anchored in multi-decade stewardship? What would it mean to shift boards from ‘Return on Investment’ to ‘Realisation of Legacy’?

That was the genesis of BCL’s Unified Countdown Framework (UCF) — a structured methodology cross-referenced to over 38 macro and local systemic risks, and mapped against 50+ global compliance regimes. From there, the second piece followed: Countdown Cloud — a SaaS platform that doesn’t just track compliance but allows boards to simulate converging crises, rehearse responses, and monitor progress towards long-term resilience.

Turning systemic risk into an addressable discipline

Systemic risks are overwhelming because they are vast, interconnected, and outside the narrow remit of most board conversations. Climate shocks merge with labour instability, AI disruption merges with political instability, supply chains cross-cut with regulatory fragmentation. It’s not one risk; it’s the entanglement of dozens.

The UCF breaks these into a structured taxonomy of Macro Governance Risks (global, exogenous shocks) and Local Governance Risks (business-specific, sectoral or jurisdictional threats). This allowed me to build a risk catalogue that boards could actually engage with — not as abstract doom scenarios, but as practical, auditable frameworks that can be stress-tested.

I also deliberately tied this to emerging compliance regimes. CSRD. CSDDD. California’s SB 253 and SB 261. ISSB standards. These aren’t distant ideals; they are binding obligations, with legal and financial consequences. Systemic risk preparedness can no longer be dismissed as a “nice-to-have” ethical posture. It is fast becoming a legal necessity. That compliance pressure, paradoxically, creates the commercial opening for BCL.

Codifying it into a platform

As someone who has spent decades delivering large-scale enterprise bespoke and SaaS solutions, I knew the framework would only have power if it could be operationalised. PowerPoint slides don’t change governance cultures. Tools do. Repeatable systems do.

So I built Countdown Cloud™ as the digital cockpit for boards. It provides risk mapping dashboards, scenario CrunchTests™, evidence tracking for auditors, and longitudinal legacy pathways for boards to monitor multi-year commitments. It is deliberately lightweight where needed (not replicating carbon ledgers or ERPs), and intentionally heavy where accountability matters: audit chains, scenario simulations, structured risk libraries, and regulatory crosswalks.

The goal was not to create another ESG software suite but to build a governance rehearsal space. A place where boards could evaluate and simulate disruptions before they arrived, where executives could practice decision-making under compounded pressure, and where organisations could quantify their evolving readiness in measurable terms.

A partner-led model

One of my early realisations was that scaling this impact could not be done by hiring hundreds of consultants into BCL itself. That would take years and burn through capital while creating channel conflicts.

Instead, I designed BCL to be a partner-led model. Advisory firms, consultancies, law firms, and ESG boutiques can become accredited delivery partners through our Beyond Advisory programme. They retain their client relationships; we provide the framework, platform, and ongoing accreditation.

This allows those firms to extend their offering beyond their traditional niche (carbon, supply chain, ethics, digital risk, etc.) and engage boardrooms at a much more strategic level. It is a force-multiplier for their own growth, while extending BCL’s reach exponentially. Each accredited partner adds to the data network, feeding anonymised benchmarks back into Countdown Cloud, continuously enriching the ecosystem.

Ethical origin. Commercial timing.

BCL began as a passion project—a personal manifesto to turn the reflections from Countdown to 2100 into practical action. But the commercial timing is not accidental.

Regulatory windows are converging. Investor scrutiny is sharpening. The public tolerance for corporate empty statements is waning. The appetite for tangible governance scaffolding is growing. I believe BCL stands at that intersection: an ethically driven model, arriving precisely as market demand crystallises.

What excites me most is not the technology itself but what it enables:

• Boards that move from passive awareness to active rehearsal.

• Advisory firms that level-up into boardroom partners, not compliance vendors.

• Organisations that leave behind a governance footprint worthy of their place in history.

The mature learner

In some ways, this has been a deeply personal process of becoming a “mature learner.” I didn’t start this company at 25, chasing a unicorn. I started it at 50, after decades of seeing how systems strain under real-world complexity. My learning was iterative, grounded, and often uncomfortable. I’ve seen how crises unfold, how risk is rationalised away, and how good intentions evaporate under pressure.

That lived experience shaped BCL’s DNA. This is not a start-up built on hype cycles or VC growth models. It’s built on the conviction that governance needs to evolve — not incrementally, but structurally. And that we can provide a scalable, defensible way to get there.

Where we are now

Today, BCL has:

• A fully developed Unified Countdown Framework, with six modules for full lifecycle engagement.

• An alpha release of Countdown Cloud ready for live demonstrations.

• A draft accreditation programme for partners and independent consultants.

Michele Wucker, who originally coined the “Grey Rhino” metaphor, has reviewed our approach and expressed interest in future collaboration. The conversations we are now having with advisory firms suggest the timing is right.

The hard work lies ahead. Building a category is not the work of months but years. But I believe this is the right problem to work on, at the right time, with the right foundation.

If Countdown to 2100 was my act of witnessing, BCL is my act of participating.

Final reflections

The question I keep asking myself—and the question BCL exists to help boards confront—is deceptively simple:

What will this board be remembered for in 30 years?

In a world of converging systemic risks, that question reframes everything. It lifts governance from quarterly earnings to generational stewardship. It confronts leaders with their role as custodians, not just operators.

And if we can help even a fraction of boards move towards that legacy mindset—with tools that allow them to simulate, practice, and measure their readiness—then this journey will have been worth every uncomfortable step.