VelorStrategy Academy · Strategic Knowledge Base

Welcome. Let's give you the working fluency of a senior strategy advisor.

You don't need another newsletter. You need a tutor who can teach you a concept, walk you through a real decision, and help you produce work you can actually use on Monday morning. That's what I'm here for. Open any course, ask me anything, and I'll teach it the way a senior strategy advisor would explain it over coffee.

7Core knowledge courses you can take in any order

4Knowledge tracks across the practice

42Applied modules tied to real decisions

21Executive deliverables you'll produce

Curriculum at a glance

Seven courses, grouped the way you actually use them.

Track	Courses you'll find here	Count
Frameworks and Models	Strategy Frameworks · Operating Models	2
Clients and Markets	Client Archetypes · Market Analysis Patterns	2
Judgment and Change	Decision-Making Principles · Transformation Playbooks	2
Synthesis	How We Think About Briefs	1

Course library

Open any course — you can take them in any order.

Frameworks and Models · 6 weeks

Strategy Frameworks

Stop reaching for the same two frameworks. Learn which structure fits which question, how to run it honestly, and how to combine frameworks into one strategy story that holds.

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Frameworks and Models · 6 weeks

Operating Models

Strategy dies in the operating model. Learn to read structure, decision rights, process, governance, capability, and metrics — and design the model that actually delivers the strategy.

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Clients and Markets · 5 weeks

Client Archetypes

The same advice lands or dies depending on the client. Learn to read maturity, buying behavior, stakeholder structure, and engagement style — and adapt the approach to fit the archetype.

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Clients and Markets · 5 weeks

Market Analysis Patterns

Markets repeat themselves. Learn the patterns in sizing, segmentation, dynamics, and disruption — and build a market thesis that rests on structure and signals, not anecdotes.

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Judgment and Change · 5 weeks

Decision-Making Principles

Good decisions are a discipline, not a gift. Learn to frame the call, weigh evidence against base rates, exploit reversibility, debias the room, and document the decision so it can be learned from.

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Judgment and Change · 6 weeks

Transformation Playbooks

Most transformations fail at adoption, not design. Learn the repeatable plays — case for change, sequencing, mobilization, adoption, value capture, sustaining — that make change actually stick.

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Synthesis · 4 weeks

How We Think About Briefs

The synthesis course. Learn the house style for a 'how we think about…' brief: a sharp claim, the reasoning, the honest counterargument, and a recommendation that earns action.

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References & further study

References & Additional Resources

The foundational books, articles, and papers behind the Strategic Knowledge Base. Every framework, decision principle, and playbook taught here traces back to this body of work — use it to go deeper than any single lesson.

Foundational books

Rumelt, R. P. (2011). Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. New York: Crown Business.
Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. New York: Free Press.
Christensen, C. M. (1997). The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Lafley, A. G., & Martin, R. L. (2013). Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Minto, B. (2009). The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking (3rd ed.). London: Pearson/FT.

Articles & papers

Porter, M. E. (1979). “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy.” Harvard Business Review, 57(2), 137–145.
Porter, M. E. (1996). “What Is Strategy?” Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 61–78.
Barney, J. (1991). “Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage.” Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120.
Prahalad, C. K., & Hamel, G. (1990). “The Core Competence of the Corporation.” Harvard Business Review, 68(3), 79–91.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk.” Econometrica, 47(2), 263–291.
Kotter, J. P. (1995). “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail.” Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59–67.

Citations follow a consistent author–date house style. Books are listed with publisher; articles and papers cite journal/venue, with stable links (publisher, Stanford, or arXiv) where an authoritative open copy exists.