Mosaic Methodology

Client Mandate

Periplus works with the client to define the question that actually decides the matter, broken into the sub-questions that different layers of the network can answer. The network is then deployed to surface what the formal record cannot.

Periplus Network

The network comprises several thousand vetted interlocutors across 85 jurisdictions, spanning hundreds of native languages and dialects—locally embedded specialists holding trusted conversations around questions clients cannot reach through formal channels. Interlocutors are the specialists Periplus engages; the people they speak to within their own networks are distinct, and are never engaged by Periplus directly. Each interlocutor produces independent source reporting on what was said, observed, and disclosed—and reads it in context: whether a commitment is firm or ceremonial, where authority actually sits, what a silence means. Working in the native tongue, interlocutors reach a layer of relationship and trust that lingua francas do not—reading official register against private view, in person, in the relevant language. All are sanctions-screened and engaged under written confidentiality, anti-corruption, and data-protection obligations before mandate deployment.

Interlocutor Selection

For each mandate, Periplus selects several interlocutors by jurisdiction, sector, and proximity to the counterparties, assets, or relationships at issue. Each is a specialist operating independently within their own professional networks, conducting multiple discrete conversations per mandate without visibility into the research of others. Each fragment comes from a different network, shaped by different relationships, and is tested against the others for divergence and corroboration.

Network Deployment

Primary-source dialogue and in-country insights

Collection, coordination, and synthesis are structurally separate; raw reporting undergoes quality control, verification, and independent review before analysis begins. Client identities remain with Periplus, insulating findings from the client’s preferred conclusion. The network functions as a root system: in-country presence compounds into a proprietary body of primary reporting, held in relationships rather than registries, that informs each engagement.

Synthesis & Delivery

Synthesis tests what the client believes against what the network has found, and surfaces what formal channels miss. Independent fragments are reconciled into a single analytical picture: what is actually happening, who holds leverage, what it means for the client’s position. Findings are tested against structured data and geospatial sources where these are relevant. Where the mandate warrants, Periplus recovers non-digitised records held only in local archives and registries, in person, through bureaucracies no remote search reaches. The work begins in conversations, provincial offices, and relationships held over years, and ends in a decision a board, an investment committee, or counsel can act on. Principals and senior advisers co-deliver the work, drawing on power-structure analysis, ethnographic interpretation, and legal or commercial judgment. Output takes the form of written analysis, oral briefings, ongoing monitoring, or litigation-ready documentation. Each deliverable separates source reporting from assessment, notes corroboration and confidence levels, and flags contrary indicators; where the mandate requires, evidentiary pathways are specified.