Spring conference season is here and The Rhythm of Business is once again pleased to be sponsoring and speaking at two events focused on advancing the profession of alliance management. Jan Twombly will be sharing some of our recent work at two upcoming conferences, the Strategic Alliance Management Congress in Boston, March 31 – April 1 and at the ASAP Summit in New York City, April 27 – 29.

Strategic Alliance Management Congress

At the Strategic Alliance Management Congress her presentation is titled Fine-tuning Alliances: From Deal Assumptions to Value Realization. She will speak about work we are doing to help alliance professionals address the spotlight on alliance performance. Savvy alliance professionals are focusing on how well the assumptions underlying the deal model are being realized. They are also focusing on key leading indicators and process measures – the productivity metrics that point to potential loss of alliance value. With this data-based understanding you can engage stakeholders in strategic reframing, operational refinement, and building financial flexibility to maximize value capture. This interactive presentation shares how alliance leaders are building new analysis skills and developing corrective action as a core competency and strategic priority of their alliance management practices.

Jan is also facilitating a panel discussion Alliance Excellence in Action: Partnering Strategically with Functional and Program Leaders to Realize Value featuring alliance leaders from Takeda, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Sanegene Bio. The panel will discuss how role clarity enables value realization, building trust with functional and program leaders, and maintaining leadership collaboration through transitions. It is certain to be an enlightening discussion.

ASAP Summit

At the cross-industry ASAP Summit, Jan will present When Strategy Misaligns: A Leadership Playbook for Protecting Value in High Stakes Alliances. Strategic misalignment between partners happens frequently, especially in long-lived alliances. Companies are both expanding and pruning product portfolios and development programs faster than ever. According to McKinsey, in biopharma 21% of programs were discontinued in 2023 – 2024 and anecdotal evidence suggests this has only accelerated in 2025. This isn’t necessarily a negative – the science is moving fast and companies must keep pace. If a program is part of an alliance that doesn’t make financial sense to end but is deprioritized by one partner while still being a growth driver for the other, the alliance professionals are in for a rough ride to find alignment on investment levels, scope of development, commercial prioritization, and more.

Based on our research and experience, alliance management professionals must convert strategic differences into measurable tradeoffs, preserve contractual rights, and get the program moving. The leadership playbook Jan presents helps alliance leaders to recognize the early signs of strategic drift before it slows operations and to use a strategic value framework to make visible where the partners are still aligned and where they now diverge. She will also demonstrate how to reframe the finances of an alliance to allow for temporary rebalancing while keeping the economic model intact.

We hope you’ll join us at one or both of these premiere events, building alliance management discipline to maximize value realization.