Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
What is more dangerous than this?
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Look. A question for you. What is more dangerous… Sending a letter you know may be wrong? Or sending one that everyone is convinced is right? In my experience… Definitely the second. A bad letter creates questions. A polished letter creates confidence. It has been reviewed by management. Checked by the lawyers. Discussed with the technical team. Perhaps even approved by the Board. Everyone agrees. Send it. And that is precisely when I become nervous. Intelligent people do not normally make expensive mistakes because they are stupid. They make them because they are confident. They know the contract. They know the project. They know the history. What they may not know is what the other party will do with those six innocent-looking words in paragraph four. Or how the same words behaved on another project. Or what position they are quietly giving away. Or what the contractor, client, lenders or shareholders will say six months later when the letter comes back as an exhibit in a dispute. I have seen this happen. More than once. More than twice… The letter was technically correct. Legally defensible. Commercially disastrous. And you got the approval of your Board… That is why I created Before You Send. You send me the letter, paper, proposal or important communication before it leaves the building. I read it as someone who has sat on the other side of the table. As Board member. As CEO. As bidder. As SPV. As client adviser. As the person who knows that one careless sentence today can become a very expensive problem tomorrow. Sometimes I will tell you it is fine. Sometimes I will change three words. Sometimes I will ask the annoying question nobody else asked. And… That question may be the most valuable part of the service… Especially when everyone is confident. That is Before You Send. A second pair of experienced eyes before an important document becomes an irreversible one. If you want that access click below before you send yours. Use this information at your own risk. ONLY 3 SEATS - First arrived, first served.
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Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
Rule 8 of PPPs: Never go around the SPV. That shortcut has lawyers at the other end. I know why agencies do it. The SPV needs to consult the contractor. Then the shareholders. Then the Board. Then the lenders. Then the lawyers. What should take five minutes takes three weeks. So, someone decides to be practical: “Let’s speak directly with the contractor.” Wrong. Look. The contractor builds the project. The SPV owns the promise. The SPV holds the Project Agreement. The SPV carries the...
Someone went on holiday. Nothing particularly unusual about that. Except that this person had to approve an invoice. And without that approval, the dark accountant at the agency did not even know he had to make an important payment. Without the payment, the SPV would not have enough cash to meet its obligations. Yes… pay your debt is really important in these cases. So, a billion dollar project was suddenly exposed to an insolvency risk because one person went on holiday. Fortunately, we had...
After financial close, everyone wants to get moving. Mobilisation plans. Design programmes. Construction schedules. Reporting templates. Hundreds of meetings. And a few parties. But there is one document I would want agreed before almost anything else. The Crisis Management Plan. And I mean agreed. Not another document that’s written for the sake of it and forgotten in a drawer for the duration of the project and that only sees the light in the annual quality audit… No. But something like a...