The product line · For CFO, CPO, CTO & Internal Audit functions in mid-market regulated industries — and the people who run them
Every product below answers that one question, on the same five-level spectrum, under the same governance architecture. Systems-neutral by design. Built by a practice, not a platform vendor.
Block 1 · Know yourself · start with the person
Before a function adopts AI, the person running it should know where AI fits them. Upload your profile reports — Contribution Compass, Insights Discovery, MBTI — and your CV, answer ten calibration questions, and receive a personal AI Augmented Plan: where AI should hold the mode you're not in, which risks invert for your working style, and your first 90 days.
Two free learning roads, hinged by the Profiler™: The Art of Soulful Work™ — sixteen weeks on the inward road, the part of the work that stays yours — and Latchkey to Launchpad™ — twelve weeks on the outward road, from first idea to a working launch.
Blocks 2–4 · Know your starting point · then the function
One methodology, three functions. Each line maps the function's lifecycle onto the five-level spectrum — L1 AI Autonomous through L5 Human Only — with governance gates, governed prompts, and a free Readiness Assessment that scores you in about ten minutes.
Eight lifecycle stages across the four faces of finance (after Deloitte's Four Faces of the CFO) — Operator, Steward, Catalyst, Strategist — governed by the drift lock.
Ten stages of source-to-settle with per-stage governance gates — honestly scoped against EU AI Act human-oversight duties, including where source-to-pay AI is (and is not) high-risk.
The audit lifecycle on two levels — function and engagement — aligned to the 2024 Global Internal Audit Standards: conclusions stay with the engagement supervisor and CAE (GIAS Std 14.5, 15.1), and every AI-assisted workpaper is documented to the Standard 14.6 test.
Who speaks for your brand when AI answers? The credible web is locking AI out, and assistants increasingly cite what's left. The Line drawn through the voice of the brand: what may speak for it, and what stays under named human authority.
Block 5 · Build the capability
The learning platform behind the practice: nineteen consulting methodologies, each with its AI-augmentation points marked, a per-concept navigator, and a full prompt library. Every human action and red gate carries a working template with named sign-off, and a CPD capture module turns use into a dated professional development record.
Block 6 · The sustainability practice
A three-level operating stack for sustainability behaviour: the Behavioural Compact, the Maturity Instrument, and the Operating System with the Adjudication Protocol woven through — so pillar collisions get decided by process, not by whoever shouts loudest. Environment sets floors, Equity sets purpose, Economy funds the journey. Weakness buys time and disclosure obligations — never absolution.
The evidence · in print
The Art of Soulful Work and Latchkey to Launchpad are published and available now — both ebooks are free downloads direct; paperbacks £15.00 at The Great British Bookshop. The Mid‑Market CFO Playbook and EVA³: The Behavioural Compact follow from the corporate line, with the AI Augmentation Profiler™ at storycltd.co.uk/profiler.
Soulful Work ebook — free download → Latchkey ebook — free download → Soulful Work paperback £19.99 — direct → Latchkey paperback £19.99 — direct → Soulful Work paperback (retail) → Latchkey paperback (retail) → Browse the books →How the work is bought
Six steps from first contact to a governed programme. No pressure mechanics: the assessment is free, the debrief is honest, and nothing is contracted before the Diagnostic has told both of us the truth.
Thirty questions, six sections, scored instantly in your browser: your band, your section scorecard and the two fields that predict trouble — before we've ever spoken. Your details and results are recorded with your consent, so the debrief skips the preamble. (Internal audit's four-minute, twelve-question Scan™ remains the quick door.)
YOU · FREE · TEN MINUTESForty-five minutes on your result. You bring the scores; I bring the pattern from functions like yours. If the honest answer is "you don't need us yet," that's the answer you'll get.
45 MINUTES · NO DECK · BOOK IT →The engagement-grade instrument, facilitated as a half-day executive workshop: enablers and lifecycle stages scored in the room, compiled into a three-phase roadmap with the quick-win rule enforced — we never sell a trap as a quick win.
HALF-DAY · YOUR LEADERSHIP TEAMScope, deliverables and governance are contracted through the Engagement Studio: versioned master terms (MSA v1.0, solicitor-reviewed draft), a plain-English engagement letter, and named accountabilities on both sides. What we'll do, what we won't, and who signs what — in writing before day one.
MSA v1.0 · ENGAGEMENT LETTER · NAMED SIGN-OFFSPhase 1 of your roadmap delivered: the logs, the locked fields, the exception gate, and the first stage brought fully onto the Line — with fortnightly checkpoints against the roadmap you scored, not one we invented afterwards.
PHASE 1 · FORTNIGHTLY CHECKPOINTSThe Line is not a project; it drifts. Ongoing stewardship covers drift review, prompt re-authorisation, model-version control and board reporting — so the governance you bought in month one is still true in month eighteen.
ONGOING · BOARD-REPORTEDThe clock
Individually, unlogged, and invisible to your quality programme. The exposure is not future adoption — it is the ungoverned use you currently can't see.
THE HONEST STARTING POINTEU AI Act Article 14 makes effective human oversight of high-risk AI a legal requirement — and "a human is somewhere in the loop" will not survive scrutiny. The gate must be named, tested and evidenced.
EU AI ACT · ARTICLE 14The 2024 Global Internal Audit Standards made technology a conformance matter; finance and procurement frameworks are following the same arc. "We haven't decided yet" is now a gap, not a position.
GIAS 2024 · EFFECTIVE JAN 2025Prompts change, models update, nobody re-authorises — and governance decays eighteen months before anyone notices. Ungoverned AI doesn't fail loudly; it drifts politely.
THE CASE FOR THE LOCKThe governing architecture
Every product on this page runs under the same four-element architecture — the drift lock on the CFO and CPO lines, the Evidence Lock™ on Internal Audit. Different names for different professions; one discipline.
Curated, versioned prompts for all material work — never free-form chat into decisions or working papers.
Rule-based procedures run beneath the model tier on versioned scripts; the model never overrides encoded policy.
Out-of-bounds output routes to EXCEPTION_
Judgement fields — significance, conclusions, approvals — are technically locked to a named person. Policy is what the system permits.