---
name: "set-board-level-alliance-strategy"
description: "Use when the alliance portfolio needs a board-grade thesis: why alliances, where we win, which bets get funded, and the board pack behind the call."
triggers: ["alliance thesis", "board pack on alliances", "fund grow hold or exit", "alliances in the corporate plan", "portfolio to thesis map", "annual alliance strategy review", "out-of-cycle alliance read"]
version: "1"
---
# Set board-level alliance strategy
Use this when the alliance portfolio needs a board-grade thesis, above
any single partner plan. Start from the corporate strategy and growth
targets, the current alliance portfolio, trailing alliance economics, the
board calendar, and the systems the numbers come from.
## Write the thesis in one page
The three corporate bets alliances have to serve, the partner archetypes
that serve each bet, and what we will not do.
Each claim names its evidence or stays UNKNOWN. A thesis with no named
corporate bet behind it is a wish, not a strategy.
## Map the portfolio to the thesis
Per alliance: the corporate bet it serves, its trailing sourced and
influenced economics, and a fund, grow, hold, or exit call with one line
of evidence.
Score each fund bet quantitatively (mutual customers, pipeline, overlap
counts) and qualitatively (executive sponsorship, joint roadmap,
competitive posture). Size the opportunity behind it — deal value,
impacted lines — and name the stakeholder impact (who gains, who loses,
who has to act) as a one-paragraph business case.
Write sunset and exit provisions — payouts, handoffs, the end state —
into every fund-or-exit call, at the time the call is made rather than
when it goes wrong.
Each fund bet gets a named board-level owner on our side.
Run this read ahead of the annual strategy review, so the board sees
alliances inside the plan rather than beside it.
## Build the board pack
Where we started (last year's thesis and calls), portfolio economics with
their trends, the fund/grow/hold/exit calls, the new bets and their asks,
and the top three alliance risks.
Follow the executive-review shape — value, gaps, roadmap, asks — with
every number sourced to its system and window.
Ship the pack as a pre-read three business days out so members mark up
questions in advance, and open the session on their mark-ups rather than
a read-through.
Leave out any slide whose source is missing, and say so in the delivery
note.
## Set the review rhythm
An annual thesis review with the board. Quarterly business reviews — the
profit-and-loss close and the council reads — feeding a mid-year
portfolio check. And a named trigger that forces an out-of-cycle read: a
failed bet, a rival alliance, or a market shock.
Each forum names its owner, its inputs, and its one decision.
## What you hand back
The one-page thesis, the portfolio-to-thesis map with its fund calls, the
board pack, and the review rhythm.
## Fallbacks
No corporate strategy on file means drafting from owner-stated bets
marked INFERENCE, with confirming them as the first review item. No
trailing economics means thesis first, with the profit-and-loss feed as
the top follow-up.
No thesis, fund call, or board pack goes to a partner, a board member, or
an executive forum without your explicit yes.