CSO · Advisor · Strategy Evangelist
Oleg Bogomolov
Strategy — not a stunt or monument — living competence of choice.
I audit strategy and build business architecture for boards, owners and executive teams: whether there is a choice — and whether the contour can hold it. CSO and strategic advisor; author of the SETR rating methodology; PhD in Economics.
SETR rating · from 8 September
About
Living competence of choice
Most companies don’t have a strategy — they have a one-off stunt at an offsite or a monument in a folder. Real strategy is not a three-year plan and not a substitute for operational excellence. It is the ability to decide what to do and what to refuse — here and now, embedded in how the business is run.
For 15+ years I have built that from the inside — as CSO and as advisor — connecting market position, product, structure and financials into one management loop. I look at the whole business, not a single function and not a consultant’s slide deck.
I work with owners and executive teams of mid-sized and large businesses. I develop corporate and business strategy, organisational design, lead transformation and support the strategic initiative portfolio. Fractional CSO — when the company needs a living strategy function, not a turnkey document and not another full-time executive “just in case”.
PhD in Economics: analysis, testable hypotheses, evidence-based decisions — not intuition and slides. Data and models support choice; they do not replace it.
Where I add value
Strategy
Diagnosis → roadmap → initiative portfolio. Corporate and business strategy in one contour.
Org design
Grey zones, duplication, bottlenecks — the architecture that can actually hold a choice.
Sessions and conflict
Work with executive teams, including high-conflict rooms; mediation on the side of intent, not peacekeeping.
Money
Strategy tied to the financial model and investment decisions.
Strategy Evangelist: I write on why “strategy” is the most overused word in business, which organisational pathologies kill execution, and what turns choice into a working system.
Three ways to work with me
Not a turnkey document and not a quarterly offsite. A reading of choice, the architecture that can hold it — and, if the director has never held a strategy function, how to talk to that contour at all.
01
Strategy audit
For whom
For a board that needs an artefact for the meeting, not another management deck. Timeline — 3–4 weeks.
You will see
Is there a strategy
Choice and refusals — or goal-setting, KPIs and a list of initiatives.
Does the architecture hold
Centre, business units, decision rights, cascade into functions.
What belongs on the agenda
Where the break is, which board question a slide cannot close.
A closed diagnostic. For public companies it does not replace the public SETR assessment. For private companies — under NDA, with no duty to disclose.
02
Strategy and business architecture
For whom
After the audit, or when the board needs the contour assembled: intent, the role of the centre, the cascade, the board rhythm. Timeline — 8–12 weeks.
What you get
Articulated intent
Strategy as choice and refusals — not a rewritten annual-report chapter.
Business architecture
Role of the centre, where corporate strategy ends and business strategy begins, decision rights.
Management rhythm
Strategy review cycle, initiative portfolio, data and the financial model — with a board or without one.
Built on SETF (Strategy Excellence Triad Framework) — a framework for assembling strategy as a choice: challenge, field of play, refusals. Not a service of the rating portal.
03
Learning to work with strategy
For whom
For a board member or executive who has never held a strategy function and does not know how to talk to management and the board about intent.
You will learn
Which questions to put
Not “tell us about the strategy”, but a question a slide cannot answer.
How to read the artefact
Tell choice and refusals from goal-setting, KPIs and a list of initiatives.
How to hold the contour
Where board oversight ends and management operations begin.
Mentoring for an owner, executive or board member. One-to-one, timed to the board cycle. It does not change the company’s position in the SETR rating.
When this is needed
Not a list of job titles that “fit”, but situations: the board can no longer close the question with another management slide.
Strategy is on the agenda
The papers are KPIs, slogans and a list of initiatives. There is no question about choice.
Several businesses, one deck
A holding or several units still live in the logic of a single-product company.
A new contour inside the old
B2B or another unit has grown, and strategy and P&L are still shared.
The director has to ask
And does not know which question to put without falling into operations.
Experience
Strategy and the strategy cycle
Assemble the competence of choice inside the contour: cascade, board agenda, review rhythm. Not an offsite every three years and not a monument in a folder.
Domodedovo · 2008–2018
Airport holding · 16 companies · ~13K employees · revenue ~$1.3B (2013, IFRS, public)
Project lead for building the strategy function and the organisational-change portfolio at one of Russia’s largest airport holdings.
I created an in-house consulting and internal analytics unit — more than 20 organisational-change projects at holding level.
I took part in the strategic support of LSE IPO preparation with a Big Four firm.
Domodedovo ran one of the strongest financial models among large European airports. For 2013, net profit margin was 23.5% — above Heathrow (16%) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (11%); revenue per passenger reached about €26, ahead of the London and Paris peers.
Yarmarka Group · 2020–2026
FMCG food and ingredients producer · ~$45M revenue (2024)
Worked at the junction of the shareholder, the board and the CEO — held the strategy function inside the management contour, not as a one-off document for a board meeting.
Designed and launched the strategy-management cycle — from strategy development through implementation and control: corporate strategy → functional strategies → cross-functional projects.
Board preparation cycle of 2–3 weeks. Company revenue ×2 in three years: strategy carried through to the initiative portfolio and functional accountability, not left as a slide deck in a folder.
Organisational and financial separation of a new B2B line into a business unit with its own contour of choice and its own P&L accountability. The line ×3 in three years.
Data and the digital contour of strategy and commerce
Digital as a decision loop, not a system rollout. End-to-end analytics — in intent and in day-to-day management.
Yarmarka Group · I.Digital · 2020–2026
FMCG food and ingredients producer · ~$45M revenue (2024)
Delivered I.Digital — a portal for seamless management decisions: an analytics platform on a corporate data warehouse with BI reporting, forecasting and budgeting services.
Forecast accuracy rose through analysis of primary, secondary and tertiary sales and historical data.
The budgeting cycle shortened from a month to two weeks; response to deviations by SKU, channel and client — a day instead of a month and a half. About $760K a year in effect.
Data Award 2026 nominee.
OMK · 2018–2019
Metals · ~$2.4B revenue · ~34K employees (2020, Forbes / public)
Took part in CRM implementation on the Russian low-code platform BPMSoft as head of the process stream. The solution moved OMK to centralised, scalable management of complex sales.
A single base of ~70 thousand potential and active clients; more than 450 employees from OMK’s selling units and adjacent functions work in the CRM.
OMK’s CRM system, grown from this work, won the “Best IT solutions for the metals industry 2025” contest.
Strategy Evangelist and author of the Strategy Excellence Triad framework
A canon of the profession and the tools: the manifesto — why; the framework and the handbook — how to assemble.
Strategist Manifesto
I formulated the Manifesto — a public canon of the profession and principles of strategic thinking, to unite leaders around shared strategic values.
The Manifesto is meant to create a foundation for a common view inside companies of the strategist’s role as a distinct function that serves the founder, the company and the CEO, balances present and future, and gives meaning to the operating core.
It channels energy into developing thinking and gives key principles and practical guides for decisions that lead to large-scale results and durable, meaningful change in the company.
SETF · handbook
Author of the Strategy Excellence Triad Framework (SETF): a way to assemble strategy as a choice and hold it in the architecture of the business — challenge, field of play, refusals.
SET Rating (SETR) — a rating of how well strategy is disclosed in a public document — a practical method under common rules that tells strategy from imitation and compares documents on one basis: neither industry nor country sets a separate denominator.
Mentor Club
Mentor, author of the handbook “Creating and supporting strategy”.
How the work is structured
First a verdict on intent and architecture. Then only the contour the board actually needs.
1. Diagnostic
3–4 weeks. Interviews with decision-makers, a reading of the strategy artefact, a map of breaks: choice, boundaries, advantage, feasibility, centre architecture.
2. Board artefact
On the table for the meeting: whether there is a strategy, where the architecture breaks, which board questions operations cannot close.
3. What follows
Stop after the audit. Or SETF support. Or mentoring for a non-strategist director. Not rewriting the text for the current SETR row.
FAQ · Questions from boards and CEOs
Who is Oleg Bogomolov?
Oleg Bogomolov is a CSO and strategic advisor, PhD in Economics. He builds the living competence of choice inside the management loop — not a document for an offsite. He works with owners and executive teams of mid-sized and large businesses.
How is this site different from setrating.org?
setrating.org is the public rating portal: the table, the methodology, document classes. olegbogomolov.pro is personal practice: strategy audits and advice on business architecture. The rating does not sell consulting, and consulting does not change the company’s rating position.
What does the board receive?
An artefact for discussion: a verdict on intent, a map of architecture breaks, and the questions that an operating report cannot close. A ruler for the meeting — not a “everything is fine” deck and not investment advice.
Do you work with companies in the SETR rating?
A closed diagnostic is allowed and does not replace the public score. Paid drafting or rewriting of strategy text for a company in the current SETR release is not offered. An improved position in the next release is possible only after the company publishes a new artefact.
Do you work with non-strategist directors?
Yes. Mentoring for a board member or executive who has never held a strategy function: which questions to put, how to read management’s artefact, where oversight ends. It is not writing the company’s strategy and not a SETR row.
Who do you work with, and in what format?
Boards, CEOs and owners of mid-sized and large businesses. Formats: strategy audit; strategy and architecture; mentoring for a director who has never held a strategy function. Full-time CSO — by separate request; I do not take the CSO role in banks, as advisor — I do.
Manifesto and articles
Professional canon in English. The full article corpus — mostly in Russian — is at /writing/. SETR methodology lives at setrating.org.
Next step
Describe the contour in brief: public company or not, the board’s decision horizon, and whether the pain is intent, architecture, or both.
- Email strategy@olegbogomolov.pro
- Mnenie stratega @mneniestratega
- LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/olegbogomolov
This site is not the SETR portal. Advice does not change the public SETR assessment. SETR is not a credit rating, not investment advice, and not a measure of financial outcome.