Learn to govern
when it is hard to.
Companies rarely fail because nobody knew the rules. They fail because, in the room, nobody asked the question. THE HELM is a 26-week programme that trains founders, owners and directors to ask it.
Four hundred years, one pattern
In 1622 investors in the Dutch East India Company complained that its directors kept the books secret and paid themselves. In 2009 Nigeria's central bank removed the managements of banks whose bad loans included loans to insiders. The technology changes. The anatomy does not.
The word govern comes from the Greek for steering a ship. This programme teaches the seven ways the steering fails, and puts you at the wheel every week until holding a course under pressure becomes a habit.
Governance is the arrangement that settles who may decide, on what information, and answerable to whom.
- Concentrated powerOne person controls the agenda, the information and the appointments.
- Conflicted incentivesPeople are paid, promoted or protected for the wrong result.
- Opaque informationThe board sees what management chooses to show.
- Silenced challengeDoubt exists in the room and stays unspoken.
- Captured gatekeepersAuditors, advisers and independent directors depend on those they check.
- Growth outrunning controlThe business multiplies while its board and controls stay start-up sized.
- No successionThe company cannot survive the loss of one person.
One real failure a week. One boardroom a week.
Taught the way the best professional schools teach judgment: by case, by argument and by practice, with AI giving every learner the individual attention those schools give a few.
Judged by people
AI drafts feedback for faculty. A calibrated human releases every mark. Nothing is multiple choice.
A real audit
You finish by auditing the governance of a real organisation and defending your findings before sitting directors and former regulators.
Honest about evidence
We teach what research supports, what it does not, and where nobody knows.
The same principles, sized to your organisation
Start-up
Founders, early board members, angel and venture investors.
- Founders' agreement and vesting
- Your first board
- Honest investor reporting
- Term sheets and control
SME and family business
Owner-managers, the next generation, their advisers.
- Separating owner, director and manager
- Two signatures, real accounts
- Family charter
- A business that outlives its founder
Large corporation
Listed companies, banks and insurers, groups, state-owned enterprises.
- Committees that work
- Risk appetite and controls
- Regulators and shareholders
- Board oversight of AI
Global edition
Governance compared across the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, South Africa and Asia, so you can read any country's framework.
Nigeria edition
Written from Nigerian company law, the national governance code, the central bank's guidelines and Nigerian cases, with its own faculty and casebook.
Eight modules, 26 weeks
| Weeks | Module | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | First principles | Why do capable, decent people govern badly? |
| 4 to 6 | Duty and law | What do I personally owe, and to whom? |
| 7 to 10 | The board as a working system | What makes a room of directors better than its best member? |
| 11 to 14 | Money, assurance and gatekeepers | How do I know the numbers are true? |
| 15 to 17 | Risk, crisis and failure | What could end us, and who is watching it? |
| 18 to 20 | Owners and capital | Who really controls this company, and what happens when they change? |
| 21 to 23 | Technology and the long term | How do we govern what we do not fully understand? |
| 24 to 26 | Capstone | Can you do it for a real organisation, and defend it? |
Week 6
Certificate in Governance Foundations
Week 14
Governance Practitioner
Week 26
The full credential, entered on a public register with your year, track and edition
THE HELM is a professional training credential. It does not replace statutory qualifications for company secretaries, accountants or lawyers, and nothing in the programme is legal advice.
Register your interest
Tell us who you are and which track fits. We will write to you when the first cohort opens, and not before.
Sitting boards can also ask about the three-day Board Intensive, taught to a whole board together on its own papers.