The Premise

Build the next decade. Protect what you have built.

Capital stewardship connects allocation, governance, and incentive design into a single system. The boards that see this clearly move faster and with more precision.

Let's talk
Awareness

See what was always there.

Your capital stewardship position, the levers available to your company, and where your strengths come to light.

See It in Practice
Perspectives

Let's shape the next decade.

The Pull or Push series. Selected writing on capital stewardship, governance design, and how boards build earning capacity that lasts.

Read the Series
Envision

Where you want to go, and what it takes to get there.

Where you are, what is important to you, and what you want to achieve. See your starting position and where your room to act is strongest.

See Your Starting Position
Execution

Leapfrog the next chapter.

Where you are, your starting position, and what could be possible. It begins with a first exchange.

Let's talk
CEO Priorities

Every priority list covers AI and geopolitics. Almost none cover where the capital goes.

Over 40% of CEOs acknowledge their current business model will need to change within the decade. The question is where capital goes next and how governance keeps pace with the speed of reallocation.

Every quarter, firms like McKinsey, BCG, PwC, and Deloitte publish what they observe across their client work and leadership conversations. AI, geopolitics, and talent appear on every list. Capital allocation discipline appears on almost none.

The CEO Priorities Tracker synthesizes 18 of these sources into a single view. See where they converge, where they diverge, and where the capital stewardship question sits in the picture.

Open the CEO Priorities Tracker
93%
of revenues remain locked in models under structural pressure. Only 7% stem from new ventures.

PwC 28th Global CEO Survey, January 2025

The Framework

Where capital stewardship meets governance design

Extended Shareholder Return™ connects three levers that are most powerful when they work as a single system.

Capital Allocation

Your capital decisions, seen through the lens of future earning capacity.

Governance Design

Your governance structures, connected to the time frame your strategy lives in.

Incentive Architecture

Your compensation design, measured against the transformation you are investing in.

Three dimensions. One view. Together, they reveal how capital allocation, governance, and incentives interact in a company.

Explore the Extended Shareholder Return™ Framework
When all three dimensions tell the same story

A case study in seeing early

A publicly listed European group invested in transformation for over a decade. Standard reporting showed progress. The Extended Shareholder Return™ analysis surfaced a different picture: the capital allocated to maintain existing structures consistently exceeded the capital directed toward future earning capacity.

The company was acquired by a foreign industrial buyer. The analysis had made the structural position visible years before the market acted on it.

~0%
Return on capital employed, against a cost of capital above 8%
-9.27pp
Earning capacity gap: the distance between what capital produces and what it costs
7%
Share of capital directed toward future earning capacity. 93% preserved existing structures.
Below threshold
Capital stewardship position across all measured years
Maintained
Dividends held steady through consecutive years of negative net result
Secondary
Return on capital employed classified as a secondary performance indicator

The Company's Starting Position

Where a company stands is a starting point. Every starting position carries levers that can be activated, strengthened, or redirected. The question is which ones, how quickly they can move the company toward the position it wants to reach, and what risks need to be addressed along the way.

A structured view of where the company's capital position stands today, where it is well served, and where structural risks may need attention.

Assess the Capital Position
Situational Assessment

Your company through a different lens

How the company ticks, what it has built, and which levers could move it to its next chapter. 22 questions. 15 minutes.

Take the Assessment

If you want to explore what the profile means in practice, schedule a conversation.

Perspectives

From the Pull or Push newsletter series

Where capital allocation meets governance design.

It’s Called Fiduciary Duty

Read →

Who Holds the Pen?

Read →

Capital Flows Like Water

Read →

The Ice Tank in Kupferzell

Read →
Coming Soon

Next Edition
About

Catherine Schoendorff

Capital Stewardship | CEO and Board Advisor

Former CEO of Mercer Switzerland. Former CTO across multiple regulated industries. Three decades of restructuring, turnaround, and building revenue in professional services and asset-heavy sectors.

Today: advising CEOs and board chairs whose capital allocation decisions determine whether their companies lead the next industrial cycle or exit it. Teaching restructuring and digital transformation at executive level through WAR/IHK Cologne. Active research on how CEOs navigate structural change at the normative-strategic level.

LinkedIn thought leadership on capital stewardship and governance with 800+ subscribers.

Catherine Schoendorff
“Catherine demonstrated impressive capabilities of strategic visioning with down-to-earth effective execution with highly engaged people.”
Thierry de Beyssac
Partner, Axialent | Former CEO, Aon Europe Cluster
“She understands that motivation and appreciation are equally important to get people to do their best, and to do it with passion.”
Stefan Hepp
Entrepreneur & Global Private Markets Leader
“Catherine Schoendorff is the superwoman you need to transform your business in depth.”
Friedrich Tanner
Former CFO, Swiss Papermill Industry

Our Expertise

I have the pleasure of working alongside professionals with direct operational experience at C-level and equivalent positions across pension funds, governance, institutional capital markets, analytical methodology, legal, and operations. This expertise spans South Africa, the Western EU, and Switzerland. Gender balance, a wide range of professional backgrounds, and generational diversity are defining characteristics, by design.

How We Work

Our three-step approach

1

Where does the journey start

A first conversation about where you are, what is important to you, and what you want to achieve, once you have seen your starting position.

2

Starting Position Analysis

You share your financials, and we produce a grounded analysis of where you are. Together we agree upon your strategic profile and the options that strengthen your position, so you enter the next step from a stronger starting position.

3

Advisory Partnership

We go deeper into what can be done and what you want to do, tied back to your strategic profile and the options we agreed upon. We prepare the options for you and your board to decide upon, then work alongside your leadership team to execute.