FranklySpeaking investigates problems that keep coming back in high-stakes organisations, using a method adapted from aircraft accident investigation. Boards and chief executives receive a written finding: what is causing the problem, what it costs and what to change.

We offer investigations, correction and prevention, and a keynote that gives a room the core of the method.

Boards and the executives who answer to them: board chairs and directors, audit and risk committee chairs, chief executives and chief operating officers, chief risk officers and heads of internal audit.

Most of our clients are organisations other people depend on, where a small failure costs millions.

An audit checks what was reported against a standard. A consultant usually recommends a solution. A coach works with one person.

We investigate why a problem keeps coming back, and we write the finding before anyone proposes a fix. The scope is bounded, the work is independent and we leave once the register is handed over.

No. Frank Tsuro advises a leader, personally, on a decision. FranklySpeaking works on the organisation, with a team of associates and partners, when a problem keeps coming back.

If the question is a decision in front of you, start with Frank Tsuro’s advisory.

FranklySpeaking was founded and is led by Frank Tsuro. Investigations are delivered by FranklySpeaking’s team of associates and partners, to one method.

Harare and Johannesburg. We work internationally.

A rough test: ask 5 people on your leadership team, separately, what the strategy is right now. If you would get 5 different answers, there is something here.

The other test is cost. If you can put a real number against missed targets, people who have left or board time spent on questions nobody could answer, the first meeting is worth having. It exists to answer this question before either of us commits to more.

Because they report into the structure that is hiding the problem.

• A chief risk officer measures compliance against written policy, not the gap between policy and what people believe.
• A transformation director owns delivery of the strategy, and is too close to tell the board the strategy itself is the problem.
• A chief people officer reads sentiment well, but rarely frames a cultural finding as a business case.

This is not a criticism of those roles. You cannot ask someone to audit the hierarchy that sets their own bonus.

Confidentiality that is built into the method, not promised. Nothing is attributed by name, and nothing becomes a finding until a second, independent source confirms it.

We say at the start of every session that we are not there to evaluate anyone, and the structure makes that true.

They would if we announced ourselves as investigators. So we do not. The work is described internally as understanding the current operating landscape. That is accurate, and it does not put anyone on the defensive before the first conversation.

Findings are written as system statements either way. If a sponsor’s own behaviour turns out to be the root condition, the finding still describes the pattern, not the person, and gives them the clearest route to change it.

We will not soften a finding to protect whoever pays the invoice. An investigation that does that is not independent.

Say so, and point to what you think we got wrong. Every finding is built from verbatim evidence and confirmed by more than one source.

Disagreement usually means one of 2 things: context we did not have, which we will revisit, or a fact that is uncomfortable but not wrong. The Frame stage exists for exactly that conversation.

No confidential client information goes into any AI tool unless you have agreed and the tool’s terms allow it.

• The first meeting: no fee. A preliminary report follows if an investigation looks warranted: US$2,500, credited against the investigation.
• Investigation and correction: from US$35,000 (from R600,000). Large groups and regulators: US$250,000 or more.
• Defences Review: from US$15,000 (from R210,000).
• AI Decision Review: board session from US$7,500. Review after a failure from US$12,000 (from R170,000).
• Keynote: from US$5,000 (from R70,000 in South Africa).

Rand prices exclude VAT where it applies. Travel and third-party costs are extra. See Engagements.

An investigation and its intervention take 12–16 weeks, followed by 12 weeks of tracked realignment. An AI Decision Review after a failure takes 4–6 weeks. A Defences Review is scoped to your organisation.

You are buying a finding, not a number of days. The scope and the fee are fixed before the first interview, so you know the cost and the end date before we start.

4 documents: a preliminary report in week 1, a findings report in weeks 10–14, an alignment register in weeks 12–16 and an embedding protocol for the 12 weeks after. Your board keeps the register when we leave.

90 minutes with the executive who would sponsor the work. Questions, not a presentation. It ends with a written position on whether an investigation is warranted. If it is, a preliminary report sets out the scope and the fee.

A pilot service for 2027, for a small number of boards.

• Before approval: a board session that settles what an AI system will decide, from which records, and who answers when it is wrong.
• After a failure: a 4–6 week review of what the business believed at the time and where the defences had gaps, without blaming the nearest person.
• Ongoing: oversight reported straight to the board.

See the AI Decision Review.

Where it genuinely helps a board. King V asks boards to govern technology and AI with clear accountability, and to conclude on whether their governance outcomes were achieved. The AI Decision Review and the Defences Review give those conclusions evidence.

We do not sell King V compliance work, and this is not legal advice.

With the first meeting: 90 minutes, no fee, and a written position either way, including the answer that there is nothing here. If you want a look first, take the 4-minute check.

Yes. Our founder, Frank Tsuro, gives the keynote Fix the System, Not the Pilot, for leadership conferences, executive teams and boards. Keynotes start from US$5,000, or from R70,000 in South Africa. See the keynote.