Engagement Terms
The principles are part of the value.
Most engagement terms protect the advisor. These are written to protect you. Clients engage Prof. Corbett for judgment they can stand behind — in boardrooms, before councils, and under audit — and each principle below is a commitment about how that judgment is delivered: examined, lawful, discreet, and honest about its own limits.
Your interests are examined before your engagement begins
You never have to wonder whose side of the table he is on.
Every engagement starts with a conflict-of-interest review — before acceptance, not after a problem. Where Prof. Corbett's operating ventures, council memberships, or existing mandates intersect with your matter, you hear it from him first: disclosed plainly, then restructured or declined. Advisors who check themselves before you have to are the ones worth keeping.
Everything built together survives scrutiny
Strategy you can defend in the boardroom, before the council, and under audit.
Public-sector work is conducted in full compliance with procurement, ethics, anti-corruption, privacy, and disclosure requirements — not as a constraint on the work, but as its foundation. The result is institutional strategy, stakeholder engagement, and market positioning that stand up when examined, because they were built to be examined.
No shortcuts are sold here — and that protects you
Anyone selling certainty about public decisions is selling you risk.
No engagement offers, implies, or guarantees access, approvals, funding, procurement awards, or government decisions — those belong to public institutions, and any request premised on influence is declined without exception. That refusal is precisely what makes the counsel valuable: preparation, alignment, and disciplined execution are advantages that cannot be confiscated, audited away, or held against you.
The right expert joins the right table
Strategic judgment, honest about its edges.
Strategic advice is not legal, tax, engineering, accounting, investment, or procurement advice — and pretending otherwise is how counterparties get hurt. Where specialist expertise is required, engagements are structured to bring properly qualified professionals to the table. You get a full bench, not overreach.
Your matters stay yours
Discretion is the default, not a favor.
Client and counterparty information is handled with discretion from the first conversation. Identities are published only where already publicly documented or with your written approval — never for marketing convenience. Non-disclosure agreements are welcomed before substantive discussion whenever your situation calls for them.
What you read here is what actually happened
The same honesty this site applies to its own record is applied to your matter.
Every figure on this site is stated with its true shape: aggregate engagement values describe participation through negotiation, management, oversight, or monitoring — never personal revenue or sole credit. Testimonials appear only with written approval; photographs of others only with rights. An advisor who refuses to inflate his own record will not inflate your prospects either.
Selective — which is why you get real attention
Few engagements, fully present.
Engagements are deliberately few. Inquiries proceed through qualification — decision authority, realistic resourcing, institutional seriousness — before scoping, and scope always precedes quotation, with commercial terms by private proposal. The qualification protects both sides: when an engagement is accepted, it has the attention it deserves.
These aren't the fine print. They're the first deliverable.
If these standards read like the way you want consequential work done, the conversation will be a good one.
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