Governance that holds before a crisis.
Decision authority that holds during one.
Ann Marie van den Hurk, MSc., APR works with executive teams at two critical moments -- when governance is quietly losing ground to operational pressure, and when an AI or cyber crisis demands immediate, defensible leadership action.
The first moment is quiet. Governance loses ground to operational pressure. Policies exist but enforcement is under-resourced. Exceptions get made informally. Workarounds become institutional behavior. Leadership feels something is off but cannot see exactly where it opened.
The second moment is loud. Deepfakes of your CEO. Ransomware paralyzing operations. Synthetic media weaponized against your brand. These threats arrive faster than most leadership teams can activate a response.
The failure point at both moments is almost never technical. It is structural -- unclear decision authority, undefined enforcement responsibility, leadership teams that have never established who holds the call under real pressure.
The standard has shifted. Organizations are now expected to demonstrate not just that they responded, but that a clear governance structure guided every call made under pressure -- before and during the crisis.
A five-pillar operating system that builds the structural capacity for fast, defensible executive decisions under pressure. Not a communications plan. Not a checklist. An operating architecture.
Every engagement is designed around a single question: does your leadership team know who decides what, and when? Each offer is complete on its own. Each one naturally points toward the next.
Most organizations have the governance. Policies exist. Procedures are documented. The problem is what happens after the third understaffed quarter -- when the same people enforcing governance are the people delivering customer commitments. One keeps losing, quietly, one operational tradeoff at a time.
A structured 90-minute session that surfaces exactly where governance has diverged from operational reality and where decision authority has become assumed rather than defined. Written Governance Continuity Finding delivered within 48 hours.
For CEOs who feel governance losing ground to operational pressure but cannot clearly see where it opened.
- 90-minute structured session
- Three-question pre-session intake
- Written Governance Continuity Finding within 48 hours
- Maps all four dimensions of governance drift
- Complimentary 20-minute discovery call
This is not a scripted walk-through. The CrisisOS5™ Tabletop is a fully dynamic simulation -- the scenario evolves based on how your team actually responds. Every decision your leadership makes triggers a new development, a new pressure point, a new stakeholder demand.
The exercise adapts in real time, exposing exactly how decision authority performs when the situation is genuinely uncertain and the stakes are real. Your team discovers its own gaps during the session, not from a report afterward.
For leadership teams that need to see how their governance actually performs under pressure -- before an incident forces the answer publicly.
- 90-120 minutes · Virtual or on-site
- Up to 12 participants
- Sector-aligned scenario with real-time adaptive injects
- Facilitated debrief
- Professional after-action summary
For organizations that have identified specific governance gaps -- through the Governance Continuity Assessment, a Tabletop, or their own internal assessment -- and are ready to address them systematically.
This engagement covers both governance drift and crisis decision authority. Whether your organization needs to close the gap between documented governance and operational reality, build decision authority structures for specific risk scenarios, or embed governance discipline across leadership, the engagement is scoped to your specific situation and findings.
Scope and structure are defined in a planning conversation after initial findings. Every engagement is founder-led by Ann Marie van den Hurk.
For regulated, high-visibility, or operationally complex organizations where governance fragility carries regulatory, financial, or reputational consequence.
$10,000
- Scope defined after initial findings
- Covers governance drift and crisis decision authority
- Written deliverables throughout
- Designed for regulated and high-visibility organizations
- Begins with a planning conversation
Executive Crisis Readiness Advisor. Creator of the CrisisOS5™ Framework. Trusted by CEOs, CISOs, General Counsel, Chief Risk Officers, and boards.
- Creator of the CrisisOS5™ Framework -- executive decision architecture for AI and cyber crises
- 25+ years guiding boards and C-suites through high-stakes digital and operational crises
- Former Corporate Leader: Schneider Electric, Cybersecurity and Product Security
- Global speaker: ICMC, PRSA, Cyber Breakfast Club DC, and international executive forums
- Bridges technical, legal, and executive leadership during the moments that define organizations
- Author: Social Media Crisis Communications: Preparing for, Preventing, and Surviving a Public Relations #Fail (Que, 2013)
Not hypothetical. Delivered for organizations operating under real pressure. Clients have applied this work to brief regulators, support M&A diligence, and demonstrate cyber governance to their boards.
Hour
Both entry point engagements begin with a complimentary conversation. Both deliver a specific written finding. Both are designed to fit within discretionary operational budgets without a procurement cycle.