Executive Talk: Charlie Newark-French, CEO of Cascade

Max Bowen
Nov 12
2 min read

Strategy Meets Systems. Why the Future of Strategy Is Real-Time

“Strategy is existential — but the way we operate strategy today is wrong.”

At the APAC Chief Strategy Officer Conference, Charlie Newark-French, CEO of Cascade, challenged a packed room of strategy leaders with a simple question:If every other business function runs on real-time systems, why doesn’t strategy?

Over 25 minutes, Charlie unpacked how the next era of leadership will be defined not just by what strategies we design, but how we run them day to day.

1. Strategy is existential, but most companies are getting it wrong

More than half of the Fortune 500 has disappeared in the past 20 years.Not merged. Not pivoted. Gone.

Charlie’s analysis? Failure rarely comes from quarterly misses, it comes from strategic inertia.Companies like Kodak and Blockbuster knew change was coming. They just couldn’t move fast enough to act on it.

“The future doesn’t hit you overnight. It shows up slowly, then suddenly.”

2. The real disruption is how strategy is operated

Every function has modernised:

CROs run dashboards.
CFOs use real-time financials.
CTOs live in JIRA.

But strategy? Still PowerPoint and Excel.That lag, Charlie argues, is now the biggest execution gap inside large organisations.

“We’re the only part of the C-suite that doesn’t start the day with live data.”

The result is avoidable misalignment, like Starbucks’ early struggles in Australia. Great global strategy, poor local sensing. Had they been tracking execution signals in real time, they’d have corrected course much sooner.

3. From dashboards to discipline

Dashboards matter because they create:

Accountability
Visibility
Speed
Alignment
Focus

And, crucially, they keep strategy alive between meetings.

Charlie’s core argument: strategy must evolve into a live operating system that fuses long-term intent with short-cycle decision loops.

4. Strategy-led performance

Cascade calls this next evolution strategy-led performance, running the business with long-term vision and short-term discipline. The five building blocks:

Clear operating rhythm
Standardised updates
Connected signals
Real-time data
Dedicated system

“Every C-suite function has its own system. The CSO still has PowerPoint. That has to change.”

5. The AI leapfrog

For Charlie, AI marks the next inflection point. Where dashboards once showed performance, AI will now direct attention, telling leaders where to focus and when to intervene.

“If you’re buying software that doesn’t meaningfully use AI, stop. AI is the leapfrog.”

6. Alignment is the missing muscle

Only 14% of organisations are highly aligned, despite most leaders calling it critical. Charlie’s view: strategy has stayed too conceptual, something decided in rooms, not lived in the business.