He wears the same clothes, runs the same route, and orders the same lunch - so the only thing he has to think hard about is everyone else's strategy.
That gap is Charlie Newark-French's whole argument, and now his whole job. As CEO of Cascade, he runs an AI-powered strategy execution platform used by roughly 400 enterprises - PepsiCo, Roche, St. Jude, the World Wildlife Fund, the National Institutes of Health. The product does something quietly radical: it treats strategy as software that updates, not a slide that ages.
His line for it is “strategy-led performance.” The finance team has a system. Sales has a system. Operations has a system. The Chief Strategy Officer, he points out, still has PowerPoint. Cascade exists to retire that deck and replace it with something that breathes - long-term intent wired to short-cycle decisions, refreshed in real time.
He arrived here the long way. A consultant's start at McKinsey. A stint at Vodafone. Leadership roles at Fuze and Fusion Global Capital. Then the chief executive's chair, four separate times, across enterprise software companies including Hyperscience and Sharpen. By the time he took over Cascade in January 2025, he had spent six-plus years pushing real AI into real enterprises - and had formed strong opinions about which parts of corporate life were still stuck in the analog era.
“Strategy is existential - but the way we operate strategy today is wrong.”
- Charlie Newark-French“The future doesn't hit you overnight. It shows up slowly, then suddenly.”
- Charlie Newark-FrenchSame clothes. Same lunch order. Same running route. None of it is superstition - it's load-shedding. Fewer trivial choices means more fuel left for the calls that actually decide things.
He runs his day on lists, a habit borrowed straight from aviation safety culture. The premise: even brilliant people forget steps, and the cost of a missed step compounds.
Pattern-match the routine stuff fast; save real deliberation for the few decisions that move the needle. He treats his own attention like a scarce budget - which is, not coincidentally, exactly what Cascade does for companies.
“We're the only part of the C-suite that doesn't start the day with live data.”
“Every C-suite function has its own system. The CSO still has PowerPoint. That has to change.”
“Great strategy with poor execution will always be beaten by poor strategy with great execution.”
“The question isn't when AI will replace people, but when people who know how to use AI will replace those who don't.”
“If you're buying software that doesn't meaningfully use AI, stop. AI is the leapfrog.”
“Digitising strategy connects every role to the long-term intent. That's how alignment actually happens.”
Newark-French is fond of the companies that read the future correctly and still went under. Their problem wasn't vision - it was velocity. They recognized the change and couldn't turn the wheel in time. That, he argues, is what strategic failure usually is: operational inertia, not bad planning.
His fix is structural. Five building blocks - a clear operating rhythm, standardized updates, connected signals, real-time data, and a dedicated system to hold it all. The point is to catch the high-stakes moment early, from the data, before a crisis forces the issue.
“AI is the leapfrog.”
- on why dashboards aren't enoughCascade sits down with Charlie to unpack what a strategy “system” actually means.
The longer cut on fusing long-term intent with short-cycle execution.
His own show, where C-suite leaders explain how they navigate uncertainty and transformation.