Responsible Wind-Down Plan
Responsible Wind-Down Plan helps the founder or programme team create a practical plan for responsible closure obligations, stakeholder communication and learning capture. Within Exit, M&A & Strategic Options, it turns a broad or uncertain area of the venture into a concrete Bertie work product that can be reviewed, improved and reused. The task is intentionally discrete: it should produce a specific artefact, decision, evidence item or risk signal rather than general learning notes.
Define a practical, sequenced plan for Responsible Wind-Down Plan. The objective is to remove ambiguity around responsible closure obligations, stakeholder communication and learning capture, give the founder a decision-ready output, and make it clear whether the venture should progress, repeat the task with stronger evidence, escalate to expert support, or move into a linked stage.
Bertie or a programme manager assigns Responsible Wind-Down Plan when the venture needs a decision-ready output for this group. Typical triggers include group-gate reviews, evidence gaps identified by the co-pilot or founder request.
company status; financials; customer contracts; IP/product assets; strategic objectives; specific context for responsible closure obligations, stakeholder communication and learning capture.
Establish the precise rationale and timeline for executing a controlled, solvent wind-down of the venture. Define the explicit trigger date, target cessation day, and governance framework required to govern the orderly termination of business operations.
ObjectiveCompleting this action establishes a definitive operational runway and explicit mandate for solvent wind-down. It prevents costly operational drift by aligning founders, directors, and investors around a non-negotiable termination timeline.
What's expectedThe founder must produce a formally minuted board resolution confirming the decision horizon, runway balance, and primary closure objectives. This must include insolvency practitioner confirmation of solvent status and documented director liability safeguards.
Open action arrow_forwardConsultant stress-test · 5 questions- 1.What legal counsel or insolvency advice has confirmed that this venture remains strictly solvent throughout the proposed decision horizon?
- 2.Why have you chosen this specific termination date, and how does it align with remaining cash reserves?
- 3.How will board directors insulate themselves against potential wrongful trading risks if closure activities exceed the planned timeline?
- 4.What explicit criteria would force an immediate acceleration of the wind-down horizon before the target date?
- 5.How does the chosen closure objective balance director fiduciary duties with investor expectations?
- A data-room asset titled Responsible Wind-Down Plan
- A practical plan with owners, sequencing, assumptions, dependencies, risks and next decision points
- It should update the venture DNA with specific evidence or decisions about responsible closure obligations, stakeholder communication and learning capture, create a visible milestone in the founder journey, and generate one or more recommended next tasks
Bertie co-pilot analyses strategic options, maps acquirers or licensing paths, identifies diligence gaps and recommends preparation or closure actions. For this task, it should focus on responsible closure obligations, stakeholder communication and learning capture, prompt the founder for missing inputs, draft or improve the output, flag weak assumptions, and record the result back into the relevant data-room section.
A mentor or evaluator can review the output at the group gate. Programme managers can require an advisor checkpoint before Bertie moves the venture forward.