For portfolio companies · Portfolio-company chief executive or finance leader
Your company's review, your company's data, your call
A portfolio initiative arrives with momentum, but the workforce, payroll, and priorities it lands on are yours. This review runs standalone for your company: your employees, your payroll calculation, your implementation owners, and your approval. Sponsor assumptions do not substitute for company data, and the estimate does not enter a portfolio calculation until your review says it holds up.
The question on your desk
What do our employees receive, what does our payroll calculation show, and who handles the work locally?
From your chair
Review The Plan using your company data and retain local approval authority.
Your role in this decision: local operating-company decision owner. You enter before pilot selection is final so company facts, not portfolio assumptions, shape the case.
Sponsor and company responsibility list
Implementation plan
An illustrative scenario
Picture the sponsor's rollout call
The initiative is presented as decided. Somewhere in the deck, your company is a row in a table with a savings figure you have never seen, built from data you never provided. Your team will own the launch, the questions, and the payroll changes, but not the number.
The alternative is a review you control: the local workforce problem named first, the economics built from your payroll, responsibilities split plainly between sponsor, company, provider, and advisors, and a local go or no go decision. That is the only version of this that survives contact with your employees.
This scenario is hypothetical, written for this role. It is not a customer story and it quotes no results. Your review runs on your company's real payroll, in writing, before anything is decided.
Your part of the review
What happens, and what you walk away with.
On the agenda when your role is in the room:
Local workforce problem and timing
Company-specific economics and operating effort
Sponsor, company, provider, and advisor responsibilities
What the review puts in front of you:
Standalone company decision case
Local implementation and support plan
Sponsor-versus-company responsibility map
Proceed only when the idea fits your workforce, systems, priorities, and local accountability model.
Before you proceed
What has to be true, and what could go wrong.
Local facts validate the opportunity
The employee case is credible
The company controls launch readiness
Watch for: sponsor assumptions replacing company data
Watch for: no local approval
Watch for: unassigned local work
Where your role sits in the chapter journey:
Select a pilot
Pilot company, population, scope, and success measures · Owner: Sponsor + company leadership
Pilot with governance
Controlled launch, measurement, and issue log · Owner: Company leadership + provider
Start here: Complete a separate company review before including the estimate in a portfolio calculation. Book the confidential employer review or go back to for portfolio companies.
Same company, different chair
The other roles in this decision.
Operating partner or value-creation lead
Select an operating company and define the required financial and employee results.
Read this pagePortfolio-company finance or payroll lead
Validate the EBITDA bridge through real payroll, not portfolio averages.
Read this pageFor portfolio companies
You need numbers per company, not portfolio averages.
Read the full chapterYour next step
Start with a 30-minute conversation.
Bring your employee count, your payroll setup, and your current coverage. We'll tell you straight whether the math works for your company.