2027 Budget Planning · For HR, OD & Talent Leaders

Scope leadership development now, so it lands in your 2027 budget.

Most organisations shape next year's budgets over the summer and approve them in the autumn. This is the window to scope executive development for 2027 — accurately, and with the numbers you need to make the case internally.

A short, practical guide — the situations, the engagements, and how to build it into your plan.

Why now

The next few weeks decide next year's plan.

Leadership development either gets a line in the 2027 budget or it doesn't — and that is largely settled before the autumn approval round. Scoping now means the option is costed, justified, and ready when budgets are set.

The Planning Pack gives you what you need to do that: what the engagements involve, how they are fitted to a situation, and a business case you can forward to a chief executive, CFO or board sponsor without editing it.

Executive teams do not lose intelligence under pressure. They lose access to the judgement they are entirely capable of exercising — and at that level, the consequences become organisational.
Three engagements

Fitted to the situation, not chosen from a catalogue.

What the organisation buys is better executive judgement. The engagement is the vehicle.

Twelve months · in-house

Executive Team Programme

Collective judgement, built to last.

Structured development for an executive team whose decisions carry organisational consequence. Cadenced across the year, and designed so the capability remains after we have gone.

Confidential · individual

Executive 1:1

One leader, disproportionate weight.

A private pathway for a senior leader under strain, or whose strengths have begun to work against them. The sponsor knows the engagement exists; the sponsor does not receive the contents of the room.

Focused · in-house group

Leadership Under Pressure

Judgement held through sustained strain.

A concentrated intervention for a defined leadership group. Built around the specific pressure the group is actually under, not pressure in general.

What you are budgeting against

Six situations in which executive judgement decides the outcome.

  • Leadership transition — a new chief executive, or a substantially new top team.
  • Organisational transformation — the plan is sound; delivery keeps slipping.
  • Executive team conflict — disagreement has stopped being productive.
  • Executive derailment risk — a strong leader whose strengths now work against them.
  • Restructuring — consequential decisions under time pressure.
  • Post-merger integration — two leadership systems, one set of decisions.

If one of these is foreseeable in your organisation next year, it belongs in the plan.

What's in the pack

Everything you need to scope and justify the investment.

  • 2027 Planning Guide — the six situations, the engagements, how fees work, and how to build executive development into your 2027 budget.
  • Internal Business-Case Briefing — written to be forwarded to a chief executive, CFO or board sponsor without further editing.
  • Budgeting guidance — where the investment sits, and timing against your approval cycle.

On investment

We do not publish a rate card. Engagements differ substantially in scope, duration and consequence, and a published figure would tell you almost nothing useful about what your situation requires.

A scoping conversation costs nothing and produces a written offer with a firm figure — which is what your approval process actually needs.

Scope confirmed before 1 September 2026 is held at current rates — whether delivery begins this year or is scheduled into 2027. A letter of intent or accepted proposal is sufficient.

Making the case internally

Three things that move a budget line.

01

Frame it as risk, not training

Senior-leadership failure and derailment carry real cost. Position depth-based development as mitigation of a known, expensive risk.

02

Put it in the right budget line

Executive 1:1 under executive development or succession; the Executive Team Programme under leadership or team development, or OD; Leadership Under Pressure and Executive Response against a transition or contingency line, since the need tends to arise unplanned.

03

Scope before the approval round

Cost it now so it enters the autumn cycle as a considered option — not a late request competing for leftover budget.

Free download

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  • The 2027 Planning & Investment Guide
  • The internal business-case briefing
  • Indicative investment and budgeting guidance

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