A pack structure for investment committees built around decision quality: the thesis, assumptions graded by evidence, a downside case the sponsor did not write, exit and reversal options, and the dissent recorded rather than smoothed away.
Most IC packs are persuasion documents with a financial model attached. This template rebuilds the pack around what a committee needs in order to decide well, which starts with the assumptions and the disagreements rather than the upside. Everything is on this page, ungated.
Last reviewed 3 July 2026 · Free and ungated
Put the pack, and especially its assumptions register, to selected senior operators from the Global Board before the committee meets. A confidential report back, through a complimentary first report.
Challenge the assumptions before committingBy the time an investment committee convenes, the pack has already framed what can be questioned. If the pack contains only a thesis, a model and a recommendation, the committee can interrogate the arithmetic but not the beliefs underneath it. The structure below exists to put those beliefs on the table in a form that can be graded, compared and challenged, because a committee that cannot see the assumptions is approving the sponsor's confidence.
| Pack element | What it must contain | The standard it is held to |
|---|---|---|
| Investment thesis | The specific belief about why this creates value, in one page, written so it could later be proved wrong | A thesis that no future evidence could falsify is a slogan, not a thesis |
| Assumptions register with evidence grades | Every material assumption graded A (independently verified), B (supported but unverified) or C (asserted) | The model must show which outputs move when the C-grade rows fail |
| Base case | The expected financial outcome with its key sensitivities, built bottom-up | Finance owns the arithmetic; the sponsor owns the assumptions, visibly and separately |
| Downside case | A coherent account of how this investment fails, with the losses quantified and dated | Constructed by someone other than the sponsor. A base case minus ten percent is not a downside case |
| Exit and reversal options | What can be unwound, paused or sold, at which dates, at what cost | Each option priced honestly, including the ones that embarrass the thesis |
| Dissent summary | Who disagreed during preparation, what they argued, in their own words | Unedited by the sponsor. A pack reporting unanimity on a contested decision is reporting a process failure |
| Forecast track record | How this team's last three approved cases performed against their original projections | Actuals beside forecasts, no commentary. The committee calibrates the optimism itself |
| Decision requested and conditions | The approval sought, in tranches where possible, with the triggers that bring it back to committee | Specific enough that a future reader can verify whether the conditions were honoured |
Three roles must stay separate. The sponsor writes the thesis and grades the assumptions, knowing the grades will be audited. Someone with no stake in approval builds the downside case, with access to the same data and licence to be pessimistic. The pack owner (usually the committee secretary or CFO delegate) collects dissent directly from the people who expressed it, not through the sponsor. Combining these roles is efficient, and fatal to the pack's honesty.
The committee and the deal team usually share an employer, a strategy and a set of incentives, which means the pack's blind spots are often collective ones. When the commitment is large, the thesis is novel, or the sponsor is forceful and the dissent summary is thin, put the pack to senior operators who have made and unwound comparable investments elsewhere. Their reading of the assumptions register, before the meeting, gives the committee the calibration its own composition cannot supply. That is precisely the shape of a confidential brief to the Global Board.
Because a list treats all assumptions as equal and they never are. Grading forces the team to admit which parts of the case rest on verification and which on assertion, and it shows the committee exactly where to aim its questions.
The opposite, if it is handled properly. Dissent recorded accurately and discussed respectfully teaches the organisation that disagreement is an input, not a career risk. What silences people is watching their objection get paraphrased into nothing.
No. It fits any committee-approved commitment: capital programmes, market entries, fund investments, major technology platforms. The elements stay the same; only the content of the thesis and the shape of the exit options change.