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Catalogue

The catalogue

The catalogue is modular. A commissioned programme is assembled from the blocks below rather than delivered as a single fixed product. Tracks can stand alone or be combined when a role sits across markets, portfolio construction and reporting.

Tablet showing investments

Levels

How to read the catalogue

Every track except the board briefings is offered at three depths. The level is chosen after the diagnostic, not by job title alone.

Foundation

Assumes no prior study of markets. Typical length is twelve to sixteen hours. Assessment is a short case with guided prompts: identify the instrument, the risk, or the missing disclosure. Suitable for operations, secretariat and newly appointed committee members.

Applied

Assumes the participant already meets markets in reports or client files. Typical length is sixteen to twenty-eight hours. Assessment asks the participant to choose a framing, defend it, and name the assumption that would change the answer. Suitable for treasury, product and control staff.

Advanced

Assumes regular exposure to portfolio or risk material. Typical length is twenty-four to forty hours. Assessment is a longer practicum with incomplete data, conflicting constraints and a requirement to document the decision path. Suitable for senior specialists and committee chairs.

Track 1

Foundations of Capital Markets

12–28 hours depending on level. English as standard; Dutch on request.

This track explains how public markets are put together before anyone is asked to judge a portfolio. Participants learn the difference between a primary issuance and a secondary trade, why liquidity is not the same thing as price, and which institutions stand between an issuer and an end investor. It is the usual starting point for staff who read market language in their work but have never been taught it formally.

  • Instruments and issuers Equity, debt and listed derivatives, and who brings them to market.
  • Primary and secondary markets Issuance, allotment, and what happens after a security starts trading.
  • Price formation and liquidity How a quoted price is made, and why a price can exist without a size that can be traded.
  • Intermediaries, custody and settlement Brokers, custodians, central counterparties and the operational path of a trade.
  • Indices and benchmarks What an index includes, how it is weighted, and what it cannot tell a reader.
  • Reading a market report A practical pass through a typical daily or weekly note: what to trust, what to ignore, and what to file.

Track 2

Portfolio Construction

16–32 hours depending on level. Cases can be set in pensions, treasury or insurance.

The track treats a portfolio as a set of documented choices rather than as a list of holdings. Participants work through objectives and constraints first, then through diversification, allocation and the cost of changing course. Models appear, but so do the assumptions that make those models collapse when correlations rise or when a constraint was never written down.

  • Objectives and constraints Return language, liability language, liquidity needs and the limits a mandate actually imposes.
  • Diversification and correlation Why adding names is not the same as reducing risk, and when correlations stop helping.
  • Strategic asset allocation The long-term mix, the policy weights, and the governance of changing them.
  • Tactical adjustments and their cost When a short-term shift is a decision and when it is drift dressed as skill.
  • Benchmark selection and tracking error What a benchmark is for, and how tracking error can hide a change in risk.
  • Rebalancing policy in practice Thresholds, calendars, transaction costs and the record that should sit behind a rebalance.

Track 3

Risk & Exposure Management

16–36 hours depending on level. Stress cases use public, dated market episodes.

Risk is taught as a set of exposures that can be named, measured with stated limits, and reported without collapsing into a single figure. Participants learn the vocabulary of market, credit, liquidity and operational risk, then the tools that organisations actually put on a dashboard — including the ways those tools mislead. The closing modules connect a written risk appetite to limits a desk or a committee can enforce.

  • Taxonomy of financial risk A working map of market, credit, liquidity, operational and residual categories.
  • Volatility measures and their limits What a volatility number summarises, and the periods it quietly leaves out.
  • Value-at-Risk and what it hides Construction of a VaR figure, tail silence, and why a breach is not the same as a surprise.
  • Stress testing and scenario design Historical, hypothetical and reverse stresses, and how to write a scenario that a committee can discuss.
  • Liquidity and funding risk Asset liquidity, funding liquidity, and the difference between a mark and a sale.
  • From risk appetite to position limits Translating a board sentence into numbers, exceptions and escalation.

Track 4

Regulation, Reporting & Disclosure

14–30 hours depending on level. European frame, with Dutch practice notes where useful.

This track is literacy, not a substitute for legal advice. Participants learn how the European supervisory architecture is arranged, which duties attach to conduct and disclosure, and how a file should look if a supervisor later asks how a decision was reached. Sustainability-related reporting is treated as a documentation problem as much as a data problem.

  • European supervisory architecture Who writes the rules, who supervises, and where a Dutch or Benelux firm actually files.
  • Conduct and suitability obligations What “know your client” and related duties require when the audience is an organisation rather than a retail individual.
  • Disclosure and client documentation The difference between a required disclosure and a useful explanation.
  • Sustainability-related reporting The current reporting duties and the evidence a statement is supposed to rest on.
  • Record-keeping and audit trails What to keep, for how long, and in a form a later reader can follow.
  • Handling a supervisory request Scoping the ask, gathering the file, and answering without inventing comfort.

Track 5

Board-Level Briefings

Four sessions of 90 minutes. Groups of six to ten. Online or on the client’s premises.

Briefings are written for people who will not complete a multi-week track and who do not need to. The aim is a shared set of questions a supervisory board or investment committee can put to an external manager or an internal team, and a shared sense of what a report is silent about. Sessions can be taken as a set or commissioned individually when a committee has a specific gap.

  • Reading the portfolio report Allocation, attribution, liquidity and the footnotes that usually carry the real news.
  • Questions for an external manager A short list that tests process, not performance theatre.
  • Risk dashboards and what they omit Single-number risk, missing scenarios, and how to ask for the next view.
  • Regulatory horizon for the coming year The items a committee should already have on its agenda, without pretending to forecast the rulebook.

Pathways

Combining tracks

Most commissions are not a single track at a single level. Three combinations appear often enough that we keep them as named pathways. They remain configurations of the catalogue, not separate products, so a sponsor can still drop or add a module.

Treasury pathway. Foundations at applied level, Portfolio Construction at applied level, and the liquidity and limits modules from Risk. Typical length is twenty-four to thirty-two hours over ten to twelve weeks. Designed for corporate treasury teams that already run cash and hedging and need a common language with the board and with external managers.

Pension operations pathway. Foundations at foundation or applied level, the reporting and record-keeping modules from Regulation, and a short board-style session for the scheme’s internal sponsors. Typical length is eighteen to twenty-six hours. Written for administrators and operational staff rather than for portfolio managers.

Non-specialist induction. Foundations at foundation level plus a single applied module chosen for the role — usually reading a market report, or disclosure and client documentation. Typical length is twelve to sixteen hours over six to eight weeks. Used when a large group must reach a common baseline before more specialised training.

Request a catalogue conversation

If you already know the roles and the approximate group size, we can propose a configuration from the tracks above. If you do not, the first call is a scoping conversation rather than a sales walkthrough of every module.