The decisions only you can make.
Practiced before they’re real.
Pay the ransom or refuse it. Notify the regulator now or wait for facts. Tell the board tonight or in the morning. In a real crisis, these calls land on a handful of people at the top of the house, under time pressure, with incomplete information.
Our executive and board exercises put those decisions on the table before reality does, with your own outside counsel in the room.
- Built for executive teams, boards, and the seam between them
- Designed around your calendar: your staff carries the prep, your leaders spend hours, not days
- Grounded in what boards actually face: cyber extortion, reputational fire, regulatory scrutiny
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Explore the Scenario Library
The Gap the Data Shows
Deloitte’s Center for Board Effectiveness and the Society for Corporate Governance surveyed public and private company boards on crisis readiness.
Two findings should make any director uncomfortable:
- Boards have plans they have never tested. Most companies report a formal, documented crisis plan. Whether and how often that plan is reviewed or tested “varies across organizations.” A plan that has never been exercised is a theory.
- Nobody agrees on who decides what. Whether companies delineate board versus management responsibilities in a crisis ranged from 25% to 73% depending on the crisis type. That seam, the handoff between management and the board, is the highest-stakes handoff in any crisis, and most organizations have never watched it happen.
The companion Deloitte/NACD guidance draws the conclusion we build on: only formal simulation can show how well the plan, and the people, will actually function.
That is precisely what these exercises do.
What We Exercise
- The hard calls, in real time. Pay or don’t pay, with a live negotiation in progress. When to notify members, customers, regulators, and the market. What to tell employees before the media tells them first.
- The board/management seam. When does the board get informed, consulted, or decide? We put the handoff under pressure on purpose, because it is the seam the survey data says is undefined.
- Counsel and advisors in their real roles. Your outside counsel, forensics, and communications advisors play themselves. Executives practice using them the way they would in a real incident, including under privilege.
- Communication under fire. Approve the holding statement. Take the angry-stakeholder call. Decide what the CEO says, and when.
How It Works
- Design (4 to 8 weeks, carried by your staff and ours). We interview a small set of leaders and advisors, build the scenario from real events and your actual risk profile, and iterate it with your sponsor. Your executives see nothing until the room.
- The exercise (2 to 4 hours of executive time). Facilitated by a senior practitioner who has briefed executives in real crises. Decision-focused moves, live injects, real advisors, and no slide-reading. Virtual, in-person, or in the boardroom.
- The debrief. Hot wash in the room, then a concise after-action readout built for executives and directors: what worked, where the seams are, and the handful of fixes that matter. Board-presentation ready.
Scenarios Built for the Top of the House
- Cyber extortion with a live ransom negotiation and disclosure clock
- Deepfake of a senior leader moving markets or money
- Regulatory investigation arriving alongside an operational crisis
- Reputational fire: viral misinformation, executive misconduct, franchisee misconduct
- Activist, workplace violence, or geopolitical events touching your people
Sourced from the scenario library and the crises boards report actually facing (reputational, cyber, supply chain for public companies; regulatory, cyber, litigation for private). Every exercise is custom-built.
When Boards and Executive Teams Call Us
- The board asked when leadership last practiced a crisis, and there was no good answer
- A peer company’s crisis made the risk concrete
- New CEO, new GC, or a reconstituted board that has never worked a crisis together
- The crisis team exercises regularly, but the executive layer has never been tested
- D&O, audit committee, or regulator expectations now name crisis preparedness
“
The exercise Bryghtpath designed helped us strengthen executive alignment and validated our crisis plans under pressure. The after-action insights were immediately actionable.
Chief Operating Officer · Regional Health System
$18M → $8M
a live ransom negotiation, practiced by executives in-exercise
25–73%
the spread in whether companies define board vs. management crisis roles (Deloitte / Society for Corporate Governance)
40+
after-action recommendations adopted by a single client
What You Get
- Custom scenario designed from leader interviews and your actual risk profile
- Senior practitioner facilitation, with your counsel and advisors in their real roles
- A decision log of what your leadership actually chose, and why
- Concise executive after-action readout, board-presentation ready
- A defined path for the next cycle: the executive layer joins the enterprise simulation, or the board exercises annually
Frequently Asked Questions
How much executive time does this take?
Most executive and board exercises run 2 to 4 hours. The design work happens with your staff and ours over 4 to 8 weeks, so your leaders spend hours in the room, not days in preparation.
What does an executive exercise cost?
Executive and board exercises are scoped to your organization after a consultation. Facilitated tabletop exercises start at $25,000; executive engagements are quoted based on scenario complexity, advisor involvement, and format.
Can the board and management team exercise together?
Yes, and that seam is often the point. Survey data shows most companies have never defined board versus management responsibilities in a crisis. We design exercises that put that handoff under pressure deliberately.
Will our executives take it seriously?
Yes, because it does not feel like training. The scenario is built from your actual risk profile, your outside counsel and advisors play their real roles, and the decisions are real ones with no scripted answers. Executives stay engaged because the pressure is credible.
Are the findings confidential?
Yes. Executive exercise findings are handled discreetly, distribution is limited to the audience you define, and where appropriate the exercise can be structured with counsel in a privileged setting.
What scenarios work best at the board level?
The crises boards actually face: cyber extortion with a disclosure clock, reputational fires, regulatory investigations, and major litigation. The best scenarios force decisions only the top of the house can make.
Your executives will make
these decisions eventually.
The only question is whether the first rehearsal is real.
Fifteen minutes with a practitioner gets you a straight answer on format, timing, and cost.
Schedule an Initial Consultation