SOLON & CO.
Strategic intelligence for the next decade of decisions

The next decade’s most expensive decisions are being made now — under conditions the existing analytical infrastructure was not built for.

Solon & Co. produces structured strategic intelligence for the decisions on which capital, institutions and sovereigns turn. Two registers, one method — published monthly under embargo, and bespoke when commissioned.

Book a confidential conversation Read the published work
The published work — solonco.substack.com →
Proof of execution

Three Option Maps live. The fourth in June.

Each Option Map is a dated, sourced strategic brief built around a single near-term decision of consequence. Read any of them before you decide whether to talk. The work is the introduction.

Iran 2026
A Knowable War
Decision-architecture audit of the February 2026 strike: how public commitments locked institutions into outcomes before the decision was examined.
Read on Substack →
Germany 2026
The Structural Reset
Twelve-reform sequenced agenda for a coalition with twenty-four to thirty-six months of fiscal cover — and why four post-war operating assumptions expired simultaneously.
Read on Substack →
Australia 2026
The Slow Crisis
Three-horizon reform map for what is, on a structural reading, the most analytically tractable reform agenda in the OECD — if the politics will hold.
Read on Substack →
The method

Better decisions begin by seeing the structure before seeing the answer.

Every Option Map — published or bespoke — is built on a five-step discipline designed to be audited at every stage.

01
Map
Identify the binding constraints — geopolitical, fiscal, demographic, institutional — that bound the feasible option set.
02
Widen
Surface every option, including the option to wait. The most useful option is often the one not yet on the menu.
03
Stress-test
Test each option against historical comparators and against the dissent traffic the institutional process has suppressed.
04
Disclose
Show the inputs and the inference chain for every synthesis claim. No assertions without an audit trail.
05
Sequence
Order the recommended moves by political-economy logic, not by technocratic elegance.
AI is the leverage. Judgment is the product.
Positioning

What makes the work different.

Four principles, set against the four categories Solon is sometimes confused for — think tanks, strategy consultancies, geopolitical risk firms and sell-side research.

Disclosed reasoning, not delivered conclusions.

The client must be able to see the inputs and the logic, and disagree with one without disagreeing with everything. Synthesis claims carry an explicit reasoning chain. The work invites challenge by design.

Constraint logic over commentary.

Solon does not predict events. It describes the structure within which events will unfold. Maps of options, not forecasts of outcomes — and explicit on what would force the structure to change.

Restraint over advocacy.

The firm does not lobby, does not campaign, and does not take public positions on contested policy. It maps options; it does not push them. Independence is the asset.

Sourcing as a condition of credibility.

Every load-bearing claim traces to a verifiable input. An internal fact-check workbook classifies every claim in every Option Map as verified, corrected, removed as unverifiable, or analytically disclosed.

Who it’s for

Built for institutions where the cost of being wrong is high.

Four constituencies share a single requirement — clear sight into the next decade. Each carries its own binding question.

Funds
Macro, multi-asset, private credit and family-office allocators.
Which regime risk in the portfolio is most under-priced over the next decade?
Family offices
Single-family and multi-family. Inter-generational positioning.
How should the family’s positioning shift under climate, demographic and geopolitical regime change?
Corporates
Strategy, risk and government-affairs at the board level.
Which assumption underpinning our footprint is least likely to hold for the next decade?
Foundations & civic-tech
Public-interest institutions building augmented-deliberation infrastructure.
Where does serious analytical work meet the public good, and what should the next bet be?
339
Claims fact-checked across the first three Option Maps
214
Verified against named, publicly sourced inputs
72
Synthesis claims with explicitly disclosed reasoning chains
45
Claims removed as unverifiable, rather than left in limbo
Discipline at scale. Every Option Map ships with the workbook completed.
The founder

The firm is intentionally founder-led at the outset.

Julian Grimm
Julian Grimm
Founder, Solon & Co.

Julian’s experience includes strategy and risk consulting at McKinsey & Company and Deloitte, and the institutional banking strategy team at Westpac. He holds a PhD on the political identity of the European Union from the University of Sydney, and a Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung scholarship from earlier studies — the formative grounding in the liberal-democratic tradition. German-Australian dual citizen, with residency in Spain and Brazil.

The combination matters
Geopolitical analysisIdentify the binding constraints.
Strategy-consulting disciplineStructure the option space.
Institutional perspectiveKnow what decision-makers actually face.

Languages Works in English, German and Spanish. Reads French, Portuguese and Italian.

How engagements work

Three tiers, one method — scoped on application.

Subscription gives reader-only access to the published work. Bespoke engagements apply the method to a single decision. Retainers are standing relationships for ongoing strategic intelligence.

Initial conversation
A thirty-minute discussion around the binding decision and the constraints around it. Confidential. No pitch.
Free · 30 minutes
Scope & proposal
Clear objectives, timeline, deliverables and fees. Written, with a defined success criterion.
One week to scope
The Option Map
The full five-step method applied. Two working sessions during. A written deliverable that travels through your institution.
Six to ten weeks
Delivery & follow-up
Final session with the principal sponsors. Sixty-day follow-up is included as standard — the decision happens after we deliver, not before.
+ 60-day follow-up
An invitation

High-stakes decisions deserve more than commentary.

Solon & Co. works with a deliberately small number of clients. If you are facing a strategic decision where geopolitical, institutional or structural forces are the decisive variable, the conversation is the next step.

Book a confidential conversation Read the published work

Solon was an Athenian statesman, c. 630–560 BCE. He reformed the constitution before it broke — restructuring debt, redesigning the assembly, codifying law into a written, auditable form, at a moment when oligarchic Athens was on the path to tyranny. The work of Solon & Co. is the same work, in a different idiom: surface the option to reform before the system forces the reform.