Future-Proof Business – Executive Lab
An 8-week executive lab for business owners, founders and CEOs who are ready to strengthen their business structure, reducing dependency and increasing value for scale, succession, funding, or long-term ownership.
Designed by Marco Grüter, entrepreneur, advisor and investor with 25+ years of experience building, scaling, and preparing companies for succession, funding, or exit.
Strong businesses rarely fail suddenly. They lose value through structural blind spots that compound over time.
Increasing dependence on you as founder or CEO, decisions slowing down or concentrating, limited visibility into true value drivers, unclear prioritisation across initiatives, pressure to professionalise, modernise, or prepare for transition.
This Executive Lab exists to address those issues deliberately and in the right sequence. Not by adding more effort. By redesigning the architecture underneath the business.
The Executive Lab is a structured implementation environment, not a passive learning program.
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Translate diagnostic insight into clear priorities
Build a founder-optional operating model without losing control
Install governance, decision rights, and leadership clarity
Create visibility through KPIs and operating rhythm
Strengthen transferability, valuation logic, and strategic optionality
This work is architectural and cumulative.
“From the outside, the business looked like a success. Inside, it was heavily dependent on me. Working with Marco shifted the focus from short-term growth to building a structure that supports scale and exit-readiness. What stood out was the clarity, the sequencing, and the ability to translate strategy into something that actually holds together. Today, the business feels intentional and credible, not just to me, but also to investors or potential buyers.”
A Future-Proof Business is Valuable, Transferable, and Relevant. It's built deliberately, with strategy, structure, and succession in mind. It is engineered around these three interdependent outcomes:
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Valuable Business
Value is the foundation of wealth creation and optionality. It's not created by working harder, but through strategic and structural improvements.
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Transferable Business
Transferability is the ultimate test of a business. Without it, the business is not an asset - it's a job.
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Relevant Business
Relevance is the new competitive advantage. It drives demand, pricing power, and even long-term viability.
This Executive Lab uses the Future-Proof Business Framework to work on these three outcomes in the right sequence. You can explore the full framework in the Future-Proof Business Playbook.
The framework integrates proven concepts from strategy, governance, valuation, and organisational design.
Modern value-based management and valuation logic used by investors and buyers
Operating rhythm and KPI systems used in scale-ups and mature organisations
Governance and decision-rights models informed by board-level practice
Strategic relevance and adaptability concepts grounded in long-term competitive advantage research
Founder dependency and key-person risk frameworks commonly applied in succession and private equity contexts
These ideas are not taught academically in The Executive Lab., but translated into practical architecture and applied directly to your business.
By the end of the 8-week implementation cycle, you'll have:
A personalised value creation and priority roadmap
A founder-optional operating model
Defined governance and decision rights
A working KPI and operating dashboard
Clear leadership roles and accountability
Greater strategic optionality for the next 3–5 years
The exact focus areas depend on your diagnostic profile.
Sequence matters more than speed.
“We reached a point where the next phase of growth and relevance was unclear. The work with Marco helped us step back, challenge assumptions, and redesign parts of the business with a much clearer future direction. What we valued most was the combination of strategic depth and pragmatic thinking. The conversations directly informed concrete decisions about structure, priorities, and next steps.”
The Executive Lab runs over 8 weeks with a defined implementation rhythm. This is structured work, not passive consumption. Participation typically requires focused involvement from the Owner, founder or CEO and selected leadership roles. The objective is not activity, but structural progress.
Strategic masterclasses focused on architecture and sequencing, guided implementation with tools and templates, peer context and accountability, a personal Executive Debrief to interpret strategy and priorities.
The Lab runs in a defined 8-week implementation cycle. Each phase combines: strategic input to frame architectural decisions, guided implementation to translate decisions into structure, review and interpretation to adjust sequencing and priorities.
Read which questions people are often asking about the Lab.
By confirming, you secure your place in the upcoming Executive Lab and receive the full onboarding information.
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Next Executive Lab - 18. March 2026
Limited to a small group to ensure depth, focus, and quality of execution. If this timing is not suitable, you can request to be considered for a future Executive Lab.
Participation Investment - €2,925
Launch price: €2,925 (regular €3'950) / 25% rebate. Limited to 8 founders - Next cohort starts 18. March. Early-bird pricing ends 1. March. Payment secures your place in the cohort.
Optional Senior Leader Participation
One additional senior leader (for example COO, CFO, or trusted executive) may join the lab to support architectural continuity and implementation alignment.
Investment for an additional senior leader: 50% of the participation investment.
© 2026 Marco Grüter. All rights reserved.