Evaluation over frameworks
Templates and maturity models are inputs to a conversation, never a substitute for one.
About
One advisor. Real operating experience.
Crown & Core is built around a single principle: advice is only worth as much as the implementation experience behind it.
Founder
Martin Schwab
Before founding Crown & Core, Martin spent 12+ years in IT at Mercedes-Benz - starting hands-on as a Solution Architect on connected-vehicle systems, including credential management and dealer/customer portal ownership, before moving into strategy and leadership roles across Finance-IT, Big Data & Analytics, and Procurement. For many years, as Area Manager IT for Car Sales & Corporate Functions in Madrid, he held full budget accountability for 500+ employees and led the Spain IT Hub's transformation into a Business Stream model. He didn't observe strategy from the outside; he built systems, scaled agile delivery across 60+ software products, and then designed and implemented the strategy around them.
That distinction shapes everything about how Crown & Core operates. Frameworks are a starting point, not an answer. A strategy that hasn't been pressure-tested against how an organization actually behaves - its culture, its politics, its people - isn't a strategy yet.
Working Philosophy
What Crown & Core stands on.
Implementation over theory
Advice that stops at the strategy document is unfinished. Crown & Core stays through execution.
Discretion
Organizational health work touches sensitive ground. Findings are handled with the confidentiality they require.
Reach
A practice without borders.
Crown & Core works with clients across Europe and beyond - in person for workshops and on-site diagnostics, remotely for ongoing sparring and strategy work. Time zones and travel are planned around the engagement, not the other way around.
