In today’s competitive landscape, brand isn’t just a story or a feeling. It’s a strategic lever for growth, a competitive asset, and a reflection of how well strategy, creativity, and execution come together. Yet, many organizations struggle to quantify brand equity and its impact on results – leading to missed opportunities and under-leveraged investments.

In this episode, host Nathan K. Walters demystifies brand valuation, separating fact from fiction to reveal what it truly means to put a financial value on your brand. You’ll gain practical insights into methodologies used by leading firms, including:

• Market Comparison Method: How competitor benchmarks drive valuations in M&A.
• Cost-Based Analysis Method: The strengths and limits of valuing historical brand-building costs.
• Royalty Relief Method: Why this legal and tax-oriented approach is often used for global brands.
• Incremental Cash Flow Method (Brand Contribution Analysis): Measuring how brand attributes directly impact revenue and future growth.

We’ll unpack real-world case studies:

✅ Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of Neutrogena – a masterclass in projecting incremental cash flows and using market comparables to guide valuation decisions.
❌ VF Corporation’s costly misstep with Supreme, overestimating future royalties and growth assumptions, leading to a $600 million write-down.

If you’re an executive or marketing leader seeking to elevate your strategic impact, this episode will equip you to:

✔️ Treat brand as a tangible financial asset
✔️ Measure and report brand value credibly
✔️ Align brand strategy with business objectives to drive measurable growth

Listen in to ensure your brand story is not just compelling – but quantifiably valuable. Beyond the Result brings you the insights to lead with confidence, craft winning strategies, and deliver results that show up on the balance sheet.

In this episode of Beyond the Result, transformational executive leader Nathan K. Walters challenges conventional thinking about strategic planning. In a business landscape shaped by volatility, rapid change, and shifting priorities, many leaders are asking: Is strategic planning still a valuable exercise—or has it become obsolete?

While it doesn’t show up on a balance sheet, strategic planning is a major investment of time, energy, and talent. The planning horizon varies by industry—1 to 5 years in retail, 10 to 30 years in energy—but the challenge is the same: how do you create a roadmap when the terrain keeps shifting?

Drawing on years of leadership experience and an MBA specialization in strategic management, Nathan explores why some organizations thrive with clear strategic direction while others struggle to stay aligned. He outlines what separates high-performing teams: a deep understanding of the full planning cycle, cross-functional coordination, and the discipline to revisit and refine strategy in real time.

Discover:

• Why strategic planning is a “team sport” and not just an executive task
• How to treat your strategy as a living document, not a one-time event
• The emerging use of agile principles in long-term planning
• What it takes to stay aligned in the face of disruption

Whether you're leading a startup or steering a multinational, this episode will help you assess whether your organization is driving toward strategy—or drifting with momentum.

In this episode of the Cracking the Code series, transformational executive leader Nathan K. Walters continues his deep dive into how organizations can unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence investments.

Part 2 centres on a foundational—and often overlooked—pillar of AI success: clearly defining the right business problem. Nathan walks through a practical framework for identifying high-value challenges by assessing the current state, envisioning the desired future, and performing a structured gap analysis. He shares how to ensure the problem is strategically aligned, culturally compatible, data-supported, and worthy of executive-level attention.

From there, the episode transitions to execution—offering a blueprint for how to scale AI initiatives. Nathan outlines the critical role of Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) and how they mature into Minimum Marketable Products (MMPs) that deliver real impact across the enterprise. He emphasizes the importance of a strong product roadmap to guide priorities, resource allocation, and iterative development.

Executives will gain insight into real-world applications—like clustering models for redefining customer segments and NLP for multi-channel sentiment analysis—and hear actionable strategies for structuring both development and operationalization teams.

The episode concludes with a deep look at governance, often the Achilles’ heel of enterprise AI. Nathan details the governance frameworks required to support sustainable AI at scale, including executive ownership, data and model accountability, regulatory compliance, risk assessments, and ethical oversight.

Whether you're just beginning your AI journey or scaling an enterprise-grade initiative, this episode equips you with the strategic fundamentals—the “ABCs of AI scaling”—to drive measurable, long-term value.