Case studies
Selected examples of purpose, portfolio, and proof in practice
Africa Pathogen Genomics Initiative
Built end-to-end portfolio and partnership strategy and took $100M intitiative from concept to launch, supporting a continent-wide genomics effort designed to build next-generation sequencing capacity across 20 national public health institutes.
Built partner engagement with Illumina and Oxford Nanopore and built a custom African Union dashboard to monitor SARS-CoV-2 variants and related indicators.
20
national public health institutes involved with sequencing
$100M
investment taken from concept to launch
Defined the launch objective and made explicit the tradeoffs between speed, sovereignty, and standardization required to deliver a single scalable program rather than fragmented pilots.
Structured delivery into a small set of execution lanes with clear decision rights and partner roles: capacity across priority institutes, sequencing infrastructure and procurement pathways, regional coordination and shared public goods, and data systems for leadership decision support. Aligned private-sector engagement to implementation constraints and technical pathways.
Established leadership visibility and accountability loops, including a custom dashboard for SARS-CoV-2 variant monitoring, milestone-based reviews, and escalation forums designed to surface delivery risks early and enable course correction.
Client type
Public-sector institutions and public-private partnership
Relevant expertise
Strategic partnerships
Portfolio design and alignment
Data systems and responsible AI
Led strategy for a $50M learning agenda designed to function as a foundation-wide learning portfolio, not a standalone research body. Designed collaboration with 10+ foundation teams, built eight-figure partnerships with the World Bank and Microsoft, created an international learning consortium with Innovations for Poverty Action, and led portfolio analysis to target evidence gaps and catalytic opportunities.
Digital Connectivity Learning Agenda
10+
foundation teams in collaboration
$50M
learning agenda designed
Specified the portfolio decisions the learning agenda had to support, and set the bar for rigor versus speed so learning would directly inform what to fund, what to stop, and what to scale.
Prioritized a small set of learning bets tied to explicit decision nodes in portfolio governance. Structured partner pathways to enable adoption and scale, and designed a consortium model to coordinate evidence production and reuse across contexts.
Operationalized the learning system through shared measurement standards, a synthesis and review cycle, and portfolio analysis mapping capital flows and evidence gaps so investment priorities could shift based on what the evidence showed.
Client type
Foundation portfolio and partner ecosystem
Relevant expertise
Learning agendas and evidence systems
Strategic partnerships
Portfolio design and alignment
Atlas Impact
Building a next-generation impact advisory platform for family offices and next-gen wealth holders, centered on governance and values-aligned deployment.
Building a dual-track client acquisition strategy: direct acquisition grounded in clear comparative advantage, plus structured collaborations with financial institutions and other premium service providers.
Defining the platform’s comparative advantage and the boundaries between bespoke advisory depth and repeatable growth and delivery, with tradeoffs made explicit up front.
Building a small acquisition portfolio with clear operating rhythm: direct acquisition anchored in ideal client profile and qualification standards, plus partner-led acquisition through structured collaborations with financial institutions and premium service providers. Translating delivery into a clear offer structure and decision rights that reduce founder bottlenecks.
Embedding learning loops and accountability across pipeline and delivery: pipeline quality indicators, partner performance signals, delivery quality checkpoints, and a review cycle that improves conversion, retention, and delivery consistency as volume increases.
Client type
Founder-led platform serving philanthropists and family offices
Relevant expertise
Strategic direction
Strategic partnerships
Cross-sector engagement
Designing strategy and platform architecture for a $300M women’s health fund of funds, including philanthropic non-dilutive capital to scale strong science to venture-ready assets while building platform capability.
Building a stage-by-stage market map of women’s health VC, identifying core market failures, and translating them into partnership and platform architecture that applies an established playbook to a novel sector.
Creo Women’s Health Fund of Funds
$300M
women's health fund designed
Setting the fund’s ambition and naming the tradeoffs between rapid deployment and the platform capability required to make the category investable at scale. Structuring philanthropic capital to be maximally catalytic, not a general subsidy.
Building a focused investment strategy by stage and sub-sector, with explicit choices about where venture capital can perform today versus where ecosystem constraints require platform functions and partnership leverage. Designing partnership pathways that support sourcing, diligence, and commercialization corridors.
Creating the evidence spine and accountability: a stage-by-stage VC market map, a clear articulation of market failures to address, and underwriting-to-capability linkages with measurable progress signals so partners can see what underwriting enables and what success looks like over time.
Client type
Impact fund and investment platform
Relevant expertise
Strategic direction
Portfolio design and alignment
Strategic partnerships
