Building the Exec Program — Scope the Marmara Brief at Bosphorus Executive Academy

A four-round, advanced executive-education simulation set inside Bosphorus Executive Academy (BEA), the open-and-custom executive-development unit of a leading Istanbul business school (€14M revenue, 22% target margin, 18 program staff, 70 affiliated faculty). BEA's largest custom client — Marmara Holding, a €9bn Turkish-Gulf conglomerate worth 19% of revenue — has issued a make-or-break brief: a leadership-transformation program for 120 senior managers across two cohorts, to launch in 14 weeks, worth €1.6M. The brief is ambitious and contradictory: 'world-class faculty' against an implied price cap, 'digital-first but high-touch', and 'measurable behaviour change' the client will actually evaluate at month six. Two rival providers are bidding and only 3 of BEA's 7 marquee faculty are free in the window. Playing the Executive Development Director, you (1) decode the brief and choose backward, outcome-led design over content-first lecture-stacking; (2) architect the program — allocate the scarce marquee faculty without over-promising a roster you cannot field, and pick a residential/hybrid/online format that serves the outcomes at a deliverable cost; (3) scope, price and defend the proposal against the rivals and a mid-round procurement demand for a 12% cut plus a third cohort 'at the same rate', matching every concession to a descope; and (4) survive delivery shocks — a marquee cancellation that carries two learning outcomes, a cohort-two clash with the client's fiscal close, and a sponsor warning of 'no behaviour change yet' — then commit a Kirkpatrick Level 3–4 evidence plan for month six. The math rewards genuine, deliverable, outcome-led, margin-disciplined design and punishes the five classic errors — over-promising faculty, content-first design, buying the deal below the margin floor, unmatched price concessions, and format dogma. Final KPIs track Operating Margin %, Outcome Fit, Client Trust, and Faculty Plan integrity against the €1.6M contract and the 22% margin target.