Fail Proof: Why Companies Destroy Value and How to Stop It

Why do companies with brilliant strategies, sophisticated dashboards, and experienced leaders quietly destroy value for years before anyone notices?

Drawing on nearly two decades in corporate finance, strategy, and special situations advisory at Forvis Mazars, KPMG, and Sanofi, Cédric Zago delivers a field-tested diagnostic manual for executives who would rather understand failure than experience it.

Part I reveals the hidden mechanisms that erode corporate value: the gap between return on invested capital and cost of capital, and the cash signals that expose it in real time. Part II dissects eight root causes of value destruction, from strategic misjudgment to governance failure. Part III turns those patterns into four capabilities, decision velocity, capital flexibility, talent mobility, and trust reserves, that protect disciplined leaders and exploit the fragility of competitors who lack them.

Written for board members, CEOs, CFOs, and transformation leaders, Fail Proof is both a warning and a playbook: every failure pattern examined here was visible before it became fatal.

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