Real Futures: Perception, Positioning & Preventative Strategy
How you are perceived shapes outcomes long before negotiations begin. Your narrative, positioning, and assumptions about stakeholders influence trust, expectations, and the decisions others make about working with you.
This session focuses on perception, positioning, and preventative strategy. It is designed to help founders identify and address narrative and expectation gaps early, before they turn into difficult commercial or stakeholder conversations.
Rather than focusing on technical deal terms, this session centres on how founders show up, how their story lands, and how consumer and stakeholder perspectives shape real world outcomes.
We will explore how to:
Build a clear strategic narrative that strengthens credibility and trust
Understand how positioning influences commercial and stakeholder conversations before negotiations start
Identify and fix perception issues early to avoid friction later
Bring a consumer and stakeholder lens into decision making, particularly for consumer facing and physical products
Recognise the risks when founders speak on behalf of consumers or stakeholders without testing assumptions
Navigate expectations around purpose and impact without creating unintended consequences
Participants leave with:
Clearer language to describe their venture, value, and intent
Practical ways to test and refine how their narrative is landing
Stronger awareness of consumer and stakeholder expectations
Better judgement around trade offs between purpose, impact, and commercial decisions
Increased confidence in shaping conversations before they become negotiations
Session Lead: Niki d’Hubert
Niki d’Hubert helps technical founders build clarity, credibility, and trust with investors, partners, and the market.
Her work focuses on strategic narrative, perception management, and stakeholder understanding. She supports founders to align how they talk about their business with how it is experienced by consumers, partners, and decision makers.
Niki brings a grounded, preventative approach that helps founders avoid common narrative and positioning pitfalls, strengthen relationships, and create momentum through clearer communication and expectation setting.
Real Futures: Catalyst Converge Accelerator
Real Futures: Catalyst Converge is CSRI’s accelerator for ventures building sustainable real estate and built‑environment solutions. The programme accelerates bold, scalable innovation by connecting founders with researchers, industry partners, and real‑world pilot opportunities.
Ventures receive guided diagnostics, expert mentorship, access to PGIM and UCL resources, and a collaborative ecosystem focused on real‑asset transformation.
What the accelerator offers
Tailored workshops and matched mentorship
Access to researchers, industry leaders, and investors
Pilot opportunities with PGIM
Support for innovation grant applications
Real‑world validation and market‑readiness
The accelerator integrates with the wider CSRI ecosystem - from Bartlett Invents to executive education, hackathons, and thought leadership - creating a clear path from idea to pilot to scale.
👉 Register your interest in Real Futures: Catalyst Converge Accelerator