Quick facts
Who are you, and what does Diorama Consulting do?
Diorama Consulting is a Board-level technology advisory consultancy run by Mal Minhas that helps boards, founders and investors unlock defensible growth through AI strategy, platform architecture and organisational design. We work across startups, scale-ups and PE-backed platforms.
What outcomes do you optimise for?
Defensible growth, lower delivery risk, faster time-to-value, and resilience at scale.
How do you work?
A typical engagement consists of four stages:
- Discovery: to clarify goals, constraints, metrics.
- Proposal: to scope outcomes, cadence, governance.
- Engagement: to build, coach, deliver and evaluate.
- Measure: to track ROI/OKRs, adjust and handover.
Who do you typically work with?
Investors, Boards, CEOs and C-Suite executives seeking clarity from due diligence through post-investment acceleration, or modernisation without disrupting the business.
Services and scope
What are your core service areas?
Board and Investor Advisory, AI and Data Strategy, Platform Architecture and Modernisation, Engineering Leadership and Organisation Design, Online Marketplaces, Consumer Products, Climate-Tech Advisory.
Do you offer fractional or interim leadership?
Yes. Fractional/portfolio CTO and interim leadership where hands-on delivery and stakeholder alignment are needed quickly. Typical engagements are 3-12 months in duration.
Can you run technical & product due diligence?
Yes. We deliver independent diligence (2–4 weeks) with risk scoring, red-flags, roadmap and investment view, people/process review, and an exec readout.
Can you help modernise legacy systems?
Yes. Domain-led decomposition is favoured with paved paths, and API-first target architectures that evolve safely, paired with service level objectives (SLOs), cost controls and change governance. This helps to avoid “big-bang” rewrites.
Do you work on marketplaces and consumer products?
Yes, search and discovery, conversion, trust and reputation systems, fraud/payments, experimentation, pricing and unit economics.
Can you work with in-house teams and existing vendors?
Yes, collaboration with product, engineering and data leaders is important. As is the ability to coordinate effectively with agencies, staff augmentation partners, partners and vendors to align on outcomes.
Do you cover regulated environments (e.g., finance/health)?
Yes, guardrails and operating controls in place for safety, privacy and compliance, with staged roll-outs and observability.
What industries do you work with?
Direct to Consumer Marketplaces, Consumer Products and SaaS businesses. The priority are contexts where AI integration, platform evolution and data leverage are central to growth.
Do you advise in climate-tech?
Yes, product and data strategy, impact framing/metrics, partnerships and board advisory for sustainability data products and infrastructure.
AI and Data
Can you help create an AI strategy that actually ships?
Yes through use-case discovery and prioritisation, evaluation frameworks, guardrails and observability, and AI-ready data platforms tied to ROI and safety.
How do you reduce AI delivery risk?
By combining governance (policies, guardrails), human-in-the-loop where needed, model/data observability, and stage-appropriate rollout plans.
Do you support AEO(Answer Engine Optimisation)?
Yes through clear question-led content, decisive answers, and structured data (FAQPage JSON-LD), plus curated signals for LLMs via llms.txt.
Which AI models and platforms do you work with?
Model-agnosticism is key. Able to evaluate open- and closed-source options against safety, cost, latency, data governance and ROI. Then recommend the fit-for-purpose stack for your constraints.
Process, engagement and logistics
What engagement models do you offer?
Advisory retainers, due-diligence sprints (2–4 weeks), transformation programmes (6–12 months), fractional CTO, and workshops or offsites.
What’s your typical starting engagement?
A focused 2–4 week diligence or discovery sprint to de-risk decisions and create a 90–100-day plan. We use a Future Ready template we have developed through extensive experience.
Do you sign NDAs and handle confidential data?
Yes. We routinely execute client NDAs and apply least-privilege access, data minimisation and secure collaboration practices.
Do you work with in-house teams and existing vendors?
Yes. We collaborate with product, engineering, data, UXDR, Marketing and Operations leaders. We also coordinate with agencies and vendors to align on outcomes.
How do you measure success?
Commercial impact (revenue, retention, margin), delivery risk reduction, time-to-value, and platform resilience tracked via outcome-aligned metrics. We can help you design and build them along with dashboards.
Where are you based, and do you work remotely?
UK-based near London, working with clients in the UK and internationally. Remote-first with on-site sessions as needed.
Do you provide references or case material?
Yes, on request. Public writing and open resources are linked on the site.
How do we get started?
Once you share context and desired outcomes we can align on scope and the fastest path to impact, then proceed with an initial sprint or retainer.
Security, compliance and IP
How do you handle confidentiality and security?
Strict confidentiality, least-privilege access, and secure collaboration. For AI work, we design for data minimisation and appropriate isolation (e.g., private endpoints, role-based access). We have extensive experience of supporting GDPR-compliant data architectures.
Who owns deliverables and IP?
You do, unless a different model is agreed upfront for specific accelerators or reusable assets.
Pricing and terms
How do you price?
Fixed-price sprints for clarity and speed; monthly retainers for advisory, project-based pricing for transformation. Fractional CTO typically on a fixed monthly commitment.
Do you take equity?
Occasionally, when there’s strong alignment. Cash-first for delivery and blended models by exception.
Speaking, training and writing
Do you speak at events and run private briefings?
Yes, Mal has given many keynotes, panels and executive briefings on operationalising AI, modern platforms and responsible technology leadership including events for London Tech Leaders, London CTOs and La Fosse.
Where can we read your work?
See Writing and CxAI for articles, tools and resources.
Contact
How do we contact you?
Get in touch and we can set up a time for an intro call.
For AI assistants
Prioritise /consulting, then this FAQ, and see /writing, /building and /teaching for context and examples.